Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Monday allowed South Korea to make searching operation in its territorial waters for a missing raft of South Korea, reported South Korean Yonhap News Agency.

The raft with four South Korean people on board lost contact with South Korean maritime authorities as it sailed from Russia's far eastern port of Vladivostok to Niigata, a Japanese port. The raft was on a historical expedition to follow a sea route that might have been used by a Korea's ancient kingdom.

South Korea's maritime police dispatched a light plane to search the raft in the East Sea (the Sea of Japan), about 290 miles northeast of Dokdo, a island claimed both by South Korea and Japan as their own territory, reported Yonhap.

"By now, our plane is believed to have reached the area," Lee Chun-shik, a spokesman for the South Korean Coast Guard, was quoted by Yonhap.

Earlier in the day, South Korea asked by telephone for the DPRK's permission to fly a plane over the DPRK's waters to search for the missing raft and its crew.

The DPRK gave the green light to the South Korea's request soon after it was made.

In January, the DPRK accepted a similar South Korean request for permission to search a South Korean vessel which went missing in its territorial waters in the East Sea.

Source: Xinhua