A South Korean fishing boat has been detained and towed to North Korea on Thursday after it crossed accidentally into North Korean waters

This has been announced by South Korean government spokesman.

The 29-ton squid fishing boat crossed the maritime border off the east coast into North Korea on Thursday morning after suffering a malfunction in its satellite navigation system, Chun Hae-sung, a spokesman at the government's Unification Ministry, said.

The ministry sent a telephone message to North Korea asking for an early return of the ship and its crew of four. However, there was no immediate reaction from the North.

The fate of the crew will likely complicate the already tense relations between the two Koreas. Bilateral relations have chilled rapidly after North Korea tested a nuclear bomb in May and South Korea joined international sanctions against the North.

North Korea was accused of prowling into South Korean waters and kidnapping South Korean fishing boats in the immediate years following the 1950-53 Korean War. Hundreds of South Korean fishermen from those ships have never returned home.

Such incidents have become much rarer in recent decades. But fishing boats from either side have occasionally drifted into each other nation's waters, mainly because of engine trouble. How fast they were released often depended on the mood of bilateral relations at the time.

Separately, North Korea captured two American journalists at its border with China in March and sentenced them to 12 years in labor camp on charges of committing hostile acts against the Communist state.

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