This reckless military provocation was evidently prompted by a premeditated sinister plot to bedevil the north-south relations and further aggravate the tension on the Korean peninsula.

It is the wicked intention of the provokers to drive the situation of the hotspot in the West Sea of Korea to the worst phase by inciting the KPA to take a self-defensive counter-action against their escalated naval intrusion and reckless gunfire and then let the reactionary reptile media build up such wrong public opinion that the DPRK is chiefly responsible for "provocation" and "threat" and thus spoil the climate for dialogue between the north and the south.

It is well proved by the fact that soon after the military provocation, the south Korean puppet military issued an order to put its combat air division based in Suwon on standby for emergency sortie, pushing the situation in the said waters to an unpredictable extreme phase.

In this regard, the KPA General Staff on Saturday sent the following notice to the south Korean authorities who let the puppet military gangsters make a preemptive attack, defying the DPRK's good faith and magnanimity:

Firstly, the backstage manipulators of the case should apologize to the entire nation for the puppet military gangsters' reckless military provocation.

They will not escape a stern punishment by the nation as they invented the case and put it into practice to drive the situation in the volatile hotspot to the brink of explosion.

Secondly, from now on we will open direct fire on any warship of the south Korean puppet forces without warning, if it intrudes into the extension of the Military Demarcation Line of our side even 0.001 mm in the hotspot of the west sea.

The south Korean authorities are responding to our earnest call for dialogue with such reckless military standoff as naval intrusion and preemptive attack and to our efforts for detente with dangerous anti-DPRK war games. This action can never be pardoned.

They should be mindful that they would face our merciless retaliatory strikes anytime and at any place and in any way for such provocative action as responding to the just efforts for dialogue with reckless military confrontation.

If they dare challenge our self-defensive retaliatory strike, they will meet more powerful and successive counterattacks.

The future developments depend on their behavior.