Due to a shipwreck in the Sea of Japan, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has officially protested to North Korea. A North Korean fishing boat had illegally penetrated into the exclusive economic zone of Japan and sunk there after the collision with a Japanese patrol boat. Abe announced that he would take decisive action against illegal fishing on Japanese territory.
The North Korean ship and the boat of the Japanese fisheries authority had collided approximately 350 kilometers northwest of the central Japanese peninsula Noto. Japanese rescue workers were then able to rescue about 60 North Korean seamen from the sea. The Coast Guard sent by its own account aircraft and ships to the crash site.
According to the Japanese Coast Guard, the patrol ship had asked the North Koreans before the collision to leave the sea area known for its abundance of fish and to refrain from illegal fishing. In the subsequent collision of the ships, the fish trawler of the North Koreans had leaked and perished.
In the Sea of Japan, which is next to North Korea and Russia, Japan and South Korea, there is always a dispute over fishing rights. Apparently, Pyongyang urges its fishermen to go further and further out to the sea, hoping for a bigger catch. Because of repeated poaching by North Korean fishermen in the past, Japan is patrolling ships in the area.
