The North Korean navy took the worst of an exchange of fire in the disputed waters of the Yellow Sea, just off of Incheon.  South Korea sent one of Pyongyang’s ships back north in flames, while both sides blamed the other for the first naval battle in seven years between the two nations:

A badly damaged North Korean patrol ship retreated in flames Tuesday after a skirmish with a South Korean naval vessel along their disputed western coast, the first such clash in seven years, South Korean officials said.

There were no South Korean casualties, the country’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement, and it was not immediately clear if there were any casualties on the North Korean side. Each side blamed the other for violating the sea border.

The exchange of fire occurred as U.S. officials said President Barack Obama has decided to send a special envoy to Pyongyang for rare direct talks on the communist country’s nuclear weapons program. No date has been set but it would be the first one-on-one talks since Obama took office in January. Obama is due in Seoul next week.

“It’s a regrettable incident,” South Korean Commodore Lee Ki-sik told reporters in Seoul. “We are sternly protesting to North Korea and urging it to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents.”

North Korea’s military issued a statement blaming South Korea for the “grave armed provocation,” saying its ships crossed into North Korean territory.

South Korea reports it differently.  They claim that the North’s ships crossed the 38th Parallel and refused to withdraw.  When the South fired a warning shot, the North fired on Seoul’s ships, at which point both navies began exchanging fire.  When one of the North’s ships burst into flames, they withdrew.

Either side could be telling the truth, but who benefits from an incursion into enemy territory?  The South has tried offering appeasements aplenty in an effort to de-escalate tensions on the peninsula.  They just announced a restart of badly-needed food shipments to Pyongyang, even after Kim Jong-Il’s latest rocket show off of the coast.

On the other hand, Kim knows that Barack Obama will begin his tour of Asia this week.  Obama’s visit to the Pacific Rim will attempt to bolster our standing in the Asian economies, but is also designed to bring new energy to security issues, primarily focused on Kim himself.  The new government in Japan is less sympathetic to American issues than the previous one, and Obama wants to gain some traction with Tokyo.  Kim doesn’t benefit by allowing a sense of calm to prevail during this visit; he needs to shake things up in order to undermine Obama’s attempts to unify opposition to his nuclear program.

Even apart from his normal lack of credibility, it’s pretty easy to see that the North intended on committing a provocation in the Yellow Sea for their own regional purposes.  They probably didn’t count on getting their butts kicked, though,