Coded message?

North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un has issued a rare personal apology for the killing of a South Korean official, Seoul says.

Mr Kim reportedly told his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in that the "disgraceful affair" should not have happened.

South Korea has said the 47-year-old man was found by troops floating in the North's waters.

He was then shot dead and his body was set alight, according to Seoul.

The killing - the first of a South Korean citizen by North Korean forces for a decade - has caused outrage in the South.

The border between the Koreas is tightly policed, and the North is thought to have a "shoot-to-kill" policy in place to prevent coronavirus from entering the country.

The apology came in the form of a letter sent to President Moon which acknowledged that the incident should not have happened, according to South Korea's Blue House.

Mr Kim called it a "disgraceful affair" and said he felt "very sorry" for "disappointing" Mr Moon and the South Korean people, the Blue House said. It is the North's first official comment on the incident.

The North also gave the South the results of its investigation - it said more than 10 shots were fired at the man, who had entered North Korean waters and then failed to reveal his identity and tried to flee, South Korea's director of national security Suh Hoon said.

However the North insisted that it had not burned the man's body but rather the "floating material" that was carrying him.

"The troops could not locate the unidentified trespasser during a search after firing the shots, and burned the device under national emergency disease prevention measures," Mr Suh told a briefing, referring to the letter.

The father-of-two, who worked for the fisheries department, was on his patrol boat about 10km (6 miles) from the border with the North, near the island of Yeonpyeong, when he disappeared on Monday, the South Korean defence ministry said.

He had left his shoes behind on the boat. South Korean media said he had recently divorced and had financial problems.

A North Korean patrol boat found the man, who was wearing a life jacket, at sea at around 15:30 local time on Tuesday.

They put gas masks on and questioned him from a distance before "orders from [a] superior authority" came in that the man be killed. He was shot dead in the water.

South Korea says North Korean troops then burned the corpse at sea.

President Moon Jae-in called the killing a "shocking" incident that could not be tolerated. He urged the North to take "responsible" measures over the attack.

The country's National Security Council said the North could "not justify shooting and burning the corpse of our unarmed citizen who showed no sign of resistance".

Officials said they had done a "thorough analysis of diverse intelligence", but it was not clear how exactly they had gathered the information.

The military hotline between North and South was cut in June, and the inter-Korean liaison office, which was built to help both sides communicate, was destroyed by North Korea. But South Korean military is known to intercept the North's radio communications, AFP news agency reports.
Kim Jong-un 'apologises for killing of South Korean official' - BBC News