"We've made contact with the captain ofthe ship that earlier we had lost communication with," the foreign ministrysaid.
The ministry said it appears the ship wasn't hijacked, and added officials are in the process of getting an accurate account of what occurred.
The foreign ministry said earlier that a 234-ton Mongolian-flagged squid fishing vessel was apparently hijacked by what was thought to be a pirate ship in waters 1,400 kilometers southeast of Salalah, Oman, at around 12:20 a.m. Saturday (Seoul time).
The ship carries three South Koreans and 18 Indonesians.
A military official here said earlier that the Cheonghae unit, a South Korean naval contingent, was deployed to the scene to initiate a rescue operation of the ship then believed to have been hijacked.
