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According to South Korean officials, a North Korean patrol boat violated a sea border with the South several times late on Monday.
The ship spent a few hours south of the border, nearing a South Korean border island, before returning after repeated warnings from the South, they added.
North Korea disputes the maritime border and has sent boats across it in the past.
The incident comes amid joint military drills between the US and South Korea which are opposed by Pyongyang.
The North Korean patrol ship crossed the Northern Limit Line (NLL), which South Korea considers the maritime border between the two sides, at around 22:46 local time, South Korea’s defense ministry said.
The South broadcast warnings 10 times before the ship returned, at around 02:25 local time, the ministry added.
A North Korean patrol boat violated a sea border with the South several times late on Monday
The NLL was drawn unilaterally by the United Nations Command at the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War.
However, North Korea has disputed the NLL and drawn its own border further south of the line.
“The North Korean ship’s NLL violation is seen as part of military drills,” defense ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said.
“It is believed that [the ship] intended to test the South Korean military.”
The ship was said to have come within 15 miles of South Korea’s border island of Baengnyeong.
Monday’s incident comes on the same day joint annual US-South Korea military exercises began.
More than 12,500 US troops will take part in the exercises, which include Key Resolve, a computer-based simulation, and Foal Eagle, which involves air, ground and naval drills.
Pyongyang is opposed to the drills and has previously called them “exercises of war”.
Tuesday is also the last day of rare family reunions for North and South Korean relatives separated after the Korean War.
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North Korea has warned South Korea it will cancel family reunions, a day after agreeing to hold them.
A top military body in North Korea said in a statement that it would reconsider the family reunions deal if joint US-South Korea military exercises went ahead.
“Dialogue and exercises of war” could not go hand in hand, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency quoted the North Korean statement as saying.
The two Koreas last held reunions for divided families in 2010.
The next reunions – for family members separated when the Korean peninsula was partitioned at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War – are scheduled for February 20.
In the past North Korea has cancelled reunions after the South took actions it opposed.
North Korea said it would reconsider the family reunions deal if joint US-South Korea military exercises went ahead
It has been accused of using the reunions, which are highly emotional events, as a bargaining chip.
“As we were reaching an agreement on the separated families, B-52 bombers were engaging in nuclear strike drills against us above Korea’s western sea,” the statement from North Korea’s National Defense Commission said.
“As long as [South Korea] hurts our dignity and slanders our regime, we can’t help but reconsider fulfilling the agreement,” the statement added.
Major US and South Korea military drills, which are held every year around this time, are due to begin later this month. The exercises anger Pyongyang, which views them as aggressive.
Last year, the exercises led to a prolonged surge in tensions, with North Korea threatening pre-emptive nuclear strikes and cutting a military hotline with the South.
A South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman said on Thursday that the joint drills would go ahead.
“We will proceed with our drills normally, regardless of the reunions for separated families,” said ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok.
It is estimated that there are about 72,000 South Koreans – nearly half of them aged over 80 – on the waiting list for a chance to join the family reunion events.
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North Korea and South Korea have agreed to hold reunions for families separated after the Korean War in February, following calls from Pyongyang to improve ties.
If held, they would be the first reunions since 2010.
In September, North Korea cancelled a planned reunion, blaming “hostility” from South Korea.
The move comes ahead of annual US-South Korea military drills later this month, which are expected to anger North Korea.
Pyongyang has asked Seoul to cancel the annual drills – a request that has been refused.
North Korea has in the past cancelled or suspended reunion meetings in retaliation for South Korean actions it opposes. Critics have accused North Korea of using reunions as a bargaining chip.
North Korea and South Korea have agreed to hold reunions for families separated after the Korean War in February
Millions were separated from their families by the division of the Korean peninsula after the 1950-1953 war.
The reunion events are highly emotional occasions where North and South Koreans meet briefly in the North before heading home again.
The program was suspended after North Korea’s shelling of a South Korean border island in November 2010.
The reunions are scheduled to be held from February 20 to February 25, at the Mount Kumgang resort in North Korea.
Before the meeting, Lee Duk-haeng, head of South Korea’s delegation, said: “We will make all-out efforts to come up with good results such as on a schedule for the family reunion so that we can deliver good news to separated families.
“We will do our best to start the new year off on the right foot for the South-North relationship.”
In September, Pyongyang cancelled the planned reunions of 100 families, blaming South Korea’s “confrontational attitude”.
It is estimated that there are about 72,000 South Koreans – nearly half of them aged over 80 – on the waiting list for a chance to join the family reunion events.
However, only a few hundred participants are selected each time. Most do not know whether their relatives are still alive, because the two countries prevent their citizens from exchanging mail, phone calls and emails.
Last month, North Korea began urging an end to slander and “hostile acts”, but many here remain skeptical that warmer ties are so easy to secure.
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