THE Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) yesterday warned South Korea against entering the DPRK’s territorial waters when searching for the missing body of a South Korean civilian.

“We don’t care whether the south side conducts any kind of search operation in its territorial waters or not. But we can never overlook any intrusion into our territorial waters and we seriously warn the south side against it,” the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

The South Korean military said Thursday that a fisheries official was shot dead by DPRK soldiers near the inter-Korean maritime border. According to the South Korean Government, Pyongyang sent a notice to the Blue House on Friday to explain the deadly shooting.

In regards to the shooting incident, the KCNA said Pyongyang has investigated the “awful case that should not have happened in the present phase of the inter-Korean relations,” and notified the South Korean side about its details Friday.

“We also took more necessary security measures in order to make sure that no more incident spoiling the relations of trust and respect between the North and the South would happen in any case,” the KCNA added.

Meanwhile, South Korea suggested a joint investigation with the DPRK into the death of the South Korean official in an unprecedented step late Friday.

After a National Security Council meeting, South Korea’s presidential office said that they had “decided to make the request to North Korea to conduct additional investigations and also request for a joint-investigation with North Korea, if necessary.”(SD-Xinhua)