SEOUL Feb 20 Kyodo (EDS: UPDATING...

SEOUL Feb 20 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH s KOREAN DEFENSE MINISTRY STATEMENT)

toward the south Korea on Thursday afternoon declare ed a North Korean military airplane's ''provocative'' intrusion into its airspace earlier in the day.

''Our armed forces firmly protest the provocation committed from a North Korean air force aircraft and we forcibly demand the North stop committing any similar acts,'' the Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The statement also said as it is ''provocative activities'' by the North could bring about serious dependence of cause and effects on the Korean Peninsula. It said the North should act in a responsible manner and take measures to thwart any recurrence.

A North Korean MiG-19 fighter jet briefly christianityed the western maritime de facto borderline, violating toward the south Korea's airspace at around 10 a.m., retreating without any incident in about 2 minutes, the ministry said.

The southern Korean military dispatched five fighter jet which were forward a mission in the area at that time, to the site.

It is the other time that North Korean military aircraft have intruded into southerly Korea's airspace across the Northern Limit Line since 1983

North Korea said Tuesday it may abandon the cease-fire agreement that effectively [i]finale[/i]ed the 1950-1953 Korean War if the United States imposes sanctions through the whole extent of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons development.

Pyongyang has ''no option unless to take a decisive gradation to abandon its commitment'' to the 1953 armistice agreement, North Korea said then [i]or[/i] part of to the other its official Korean Central of recent origins Agency.

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