Lee Ki-sik of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff on Tuesday detailed the incident.

SEOUL — A South Korean naval patrol boat inflicted heavy damage on a North Korean military vessel in an exchange of gunfire Tuesday morning near the countries’ maritime border in the Yellow Sea, the first violence during a year in which North Korea has repeatedly agitated the South and other countries.

By Tuesday evening, there were no signs the incident was likely to escalate into more fighting, though the two countries gave different accounts of what happened and verbally protested to each other.

South Korea President Lee Myung-bak, after a meeting with security advisers, directed the military be firm but calm and not let the situation worsen, his office said. Prime Minister Chung Un-chan said the North Korean boat made a “direct attack” on the South Korean vessel but that the skirmish may also have been “accidental.”

North Korea, in a statement by its state media, demanded an apology for the incident, which it called a provocation by South Korea.

The episode occurred just nine days before U.S. President Barack Obama makes his first visit to South Korea, where he’ll discuss the North Korean situation with Mr. Lee. The U.S. is planning to send North Korean envoy Stephen Bosworth to Pyongyang later this month or next month to discuss drawing the North back to the aid-for-disarmament process that also involves China, Japan and Russia.

The gunfight lasted about two minutes and marked the first time in seven years the two navies fired on each other. South Korea said it counted 15 bullet holes on its damaged vessel. No casualties were reported by either country.

North Korea’s statement gave no details about the damage its patrol boat suffered. North Korea said its vessel spotted an “unidentified object” in the water and was returning to land when “a group of warships of the South Korean forces chased it and perpetrated such a grave provocation as firing on it.”

South Korean military officials said the North Korean patrol boat crossed the maritime border known in the South as the Northern limit line, continued southward for more than one mile. The South Korean patrol boat broadcast five messages telling it to turn around and then fired a warning shot fired above it, they said. The North Korean boat then unloaded a barrage of gunfire on the South’s patrol boat, the South’s officials said.

The South Korean patrol boat returned fire, shooting about 100 rounds from its 40-millimeter gun, said Adm. Lee Ki-sik of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. The North Korean patrol ship caught fire and turned back northward with smoke visible to the South Korean vessel.

“We express our strong protest to North Korea and urge it to prevent a recurrence of such incidents,” Adm. Lee said at a press briefing.

South Korea patrols have monitored and turned back 22 previous incursions by North Korean military vessels across the maritime border this year, but this was the first time the South fired a warning shot.

For more than a year, North Korea’s state media has issued an increased volume of criticism about the maritime border of the west coast of the two countries. It was drawn up in the 1953 ceasefire that ended the Korean War. The North objects to the placement of the border, which cuts through water that is plentiful in fish and crab, and the South’s possession of five islands that are just a few miles south of it.

Analysts viewed the rhetoric as part of a series of provocative-appearing actions by North Korea that were intended to set the stage for new negotiations with South Korea and other countries for security and economic concessions.

The last time the two militaries traded gunfire at sea was in June 2002, when a North Korean patrol boat crossed the maritime border and fired against two South Korean patrol boats, sinking one of them and killing six South Korean sailors and injuring 19 others.

In a larger skirmish that lasted for several days in June 1999, South Korea sank two North Korean warships, killing an unknown number of sailors. Seven South Korean sailors were injured in the fighting.

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