At the same time, on the opposite coast, warships of the North and South Korean navies had a brief but violent sea battle in which one North Korean torpedo boat was sunk.
U.S. and allied intelligence services have also interdicted a number of Iran-bound North Korean arms shipments, by sea and by air, in recent years.
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It began as perfect teamwork: The US informed Spanish warships in the Arabian Sea about an unflagged North Korean freighter laden with Scud missiles.
Her name is the USS GEORGE WASHINGTON, and she has recently been deployed to the Yellow Sea, west of the Korean Peninsula, to begin joint military exercises with South Korea.
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The group made the border crossing Saturday in the Yellow Sea off the west of the Korean peninsula, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said this week.
The Unha-3 rocket blasted off at around 10 AM local time from a space center in the village of Tongchang-ri on the west coast of the Korean Peninsula, flew over the East China Sea, the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa, and then past the Philippines.
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North Korea doesn't claim either of Yeonpyeong or Baengnyeong islands, which are visible from the North Korean coast, but it does claim the sea area around both and wants the maritime border moved several miles south of the border drawn up by the United Nations in 1953 when the Korean War reached an armistice.
The weapons tests have been accompanied by a spike in hostile North Korean rhetoric including a threat to attack Washington and turn South Korea into a "sea of fire" and a repudiation this week of the 1953 Korean War armistice.
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This week North and South Korean naval vessels faced each other near their western sea border, as each side accused the other of intruding into territorial waters.
North Korea has subsequently proposed a different line -- one that would roughly extend the DMZ southwest out into the Yellow Sea, rather than hug the North Korean shoreline.
As South Korean naval frigates converged on the site in the Yellow Sea (which Koreans call the "West Sea"), the incident escalated dangerously.
According to the South Korean Maritime Police, the North seized 36 boats in the Yellow Sea in the 1990s.
Whatever the reason behind the June 15 sea battle, it showed once again how unpredictable the North Korean regime can be.
North Korea built its rocket almost entirely on its own, South Korean military experts said earlier this month after analyzing debris retrieved from the Yellow Sea in December.
Sophisticates can choose from pink Bolivian sea salt, black lava salt from Hawaii, smooth-textured Korean alkali salt and Halen Mon, harvested from the shores of isle Mam Cymru in Wales.
The defense minister, however, was criticized by lawmakers over a North Korean defector who stole a South Korean fishing boat Wednesday night and fled back to North Korea across the western sea border.
It may close a shipping shortcut to North Korean vessels, and conduct joint training exercises with American maritime forces in the Yellow Sea.
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Washington and Seoul had been thinking of sending the mighty George Washington into the Yellow Sea soon after the March 26 sinking of the Cheonan, a South Korean frigate, by torpedo.
The case for putting anti-missile defenses into place was underscored by this sobering fact: A ship like the North Korean vessel that was covertly carrying Scud B missiles and forcibly intercepted in the Arabian Sea last week could be steaming off the coast of the United States at this very moment.
In this connection, ships equipped with nuclear-capable sea-launched cruise missiles should be ostentatiously deployed within striking distance of North Korean targets.
Conversely, a Northeast Asia MRC force could be tilted in favor of additional air and sea units with a smaller ground combat component in recognition of the capabilities of the South Korean army.
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We have ample, untapped striking power in our air and sea forces should the need arise to deter or punish aggression whether on the Korean Peninsula, in the Persian Gulf, or across the Taiwan Strait.
Last week, Kim Jong Un visited two islands just north of the sea boundary and ordered troops there to open fire immediately if a single enemy shell is fired on North Korean waters.
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