A NORTH Korean air force captain defected to South Korea in an aging MiG-19 fighter yesterday while charges flew across the Korean border over naval incursions, raising new security fears.
Analysts said the defection could signal cracks in North Korea's mighty armed forces and highlighted growing discontent among the North's elite.
Six southern air force jets scrambled to intercept the MiG as it made a dash over the Yellow Sea, a defence ministry spokesman said.
The pilot, identified as air force Capt Li Chol-su (30) told reporters after he landed that he could no longer tolerate North Korea's Stalinist system.
"I came to the South as I could no longer live under the North Korean system," he said. He left behind a wife and two children.
A series of high level defectors, including diplomats, to South Korea in recent months suggests that shortages are biting into the lives of the communist elite there.
Capt Li is the first North Korean defector to fly a military aircraft to the South in 13 years and will be given a reward worth 250 million won (£210,000) mostly in gold bars.
Japan's top military officer voiced fears that the defection could raise tension on the Korean peninsula. "The Self Defence forces are monitoring and gathering information to see if the defection could raise tension," said Gen Shigeru Sugiyama, chairman of Japan's Joint Staff Council.
Hours before the defection, five North Korean patrol boats intruded into South Korean waters and were chased away by southern naval vessels, a Seoul spokesman said. No shots were fired.
North Korea, for its part, accused Seoul of sending eight warships into its territorial waters.
"The South Korean puppets today illegally infiltrated warships deep into the western territorial waters of the North," Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency said. It said North Korean restraint had averted an armed conflict. A Seoul defence ministry official dismissed the charge.
The US led United Nations Command in South Korea denounced the North's naval move. "Incurs ions such as this are serious violations of the spirit of the armistice agreement and Republic of Korea's sovereign waters," it said.
After a series of border incursions by North Korean troops into a neutral buffer zone last month, Washington and Seoul announced a new peace initiative. They are trying to coax Pyongyang into joining four nation talks, involving China, to replace a truce agreement that ended the 1950-53 Korean War with a peace treaty.
Analysts said a backlash in Pyongyang against the embarrassing loss of an air force captain to South Korea could threaten the peace moves.
The Seoul defence ministry spokesman said the pilot rocked the jet's wings to signal he was trying to defect. Southern aircraft escorted him to the Suwon military base south of Seoul.
Journalists were allowed to inspect Capt Li's silver MiG-19 emblazoned with North Korean insignia and the number "529" shortly after it landed at 11.09 a.m. (3.09 a.m. Irish time).
The fighter took off from Onchon, south of Pyongyang, and flew over the Yellow Sea off the western coast of the Korean peninsula.
Pyongyang announced last month it was abandoning its obligations under the armistice agreement. It has so far not responded to the four nation peace talks offer other than to seek more details.
Aid workers said yesterday that North Korea's food shortage is worsening with some hungry residents of the hermit nation forced to eat roots for the first time since the 1950-53 war.