North Korea has raised issues with the South Korean government's crackdown on illegal fishing operations by Chinese vessels in inter-Korean neutral waters at the estuary of the Han River.

North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency(KCNA) on Monday addressed joint military police operations of the South Korean troops and the UN Command's Military Armistice Commission in the inter-Korean buffer zone.

While calling it a military provocation, the news agency said that the North will never tolerate South Korea’s reckless maritime intrusions.
 
It remarked that South Korea needs to be reminded of the bloody lessons from the North’s shelling of South Korea’s border island of Yeonpyeong six years ago.
 
This is North Korea’s first official reaction to recent joint operations aimed at repelling Chinese fishing vessels from South Korean waters in the estuary of the Han River to the Yellow Sea.
 
The North Korean news agency insisted that expanding joint crackdowns in the Yellow Sea and the estuary were motivated by South Korean warmongers’ malicious schemes to induce North Korean forces’ defensive responses.

In response to the remarks, South Korea's Ministry of National Defense reaffirmed the legitimacy of the crackdowns. Ministry Spokesman Moon Sang-gyun said in a news briefing later in the day that the operations are in accordance with the Korean War Armistice since they are being carried out in neutral waters and that Pyongyang was notified of the actions in advance.