The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Friday warned the South Korean army not to persist in its "military provocation," which Pyongyang said might lead to irretrievable serious consequences.

It is "preposterous" for the South Korean military authorities to intensify the military provocation which may lead to armed clashes, said the Navy Command of the DPRK's Korean People's Army (KPA) in a published communique.

"This is as foolish an act as playing with fire," the communique said, in regard to what it called "the South Korean army's ever more undisguised moves for military provocation in theWest Sea of Korea (Yellow Sea) and intensified propaganda against the north."

Earlier, the South Korean army had said that a patrol boat of the DPRK infiltrated 0.7 mile into the "northern limit line" at around 5 p.m. (0800 GMT) Wednesday and combat warships of South Korea fired warning shots into the air to check its intrusion after serving warnings over a loudspeaker.

The patrol boat sailed back 14 minutes after warning shots, said a report released by the South Korean side.

"The South Korean allegation of 'a patrol boat of the north side' is nothing but a sheer lie. There was not a single patrol boat of the north side that sailed in the waters at the time mentioned by the South Korean military and in the surrounding waters," said the KPA communique.

"The fact is that the South Korean army decided to lodge a strong protest with the north side against this at the 3rd North-South Military Working Talks expected to be held soon," it said.

The communique accused the South Korean military of attempting to mislead public opinion by spreading misinformation and described this as behavior diametrically running counter to the measure taken at the inter-Korean military talks to ease the military tension.

"This cannot but be construed otherwise than a sinister aim to persistently insist on the 'northern limit line' drawn by foreign forces and incite a north-south confrontation," added the communique.

"The false reports are nothing beneficial to the development ofthe north-south relations and the relaxation of the military tension between them," it said.

Source: Xinhua