North and South Korea exchange fire

SEOUL - South Korea exchanged machinegun fire with communist North Korea on Thursday in the Demilitarised Zone, the divided peninsula's heavily fortified frontier, the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

The rare shooting -- the last was in November 2001 -- took place as the United States and China searched for a way to coax North Korea to enter talks on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons aims. A US official said the North may be ready to restart talks.

At first glance, such an incident could be seen as a precursor to heightened tensions on the world's last Cold War border. However, the North has in the past raised tensions to attract attention or before climbing down to a compromise or concession.

"It could be just an accident as it was in the last shooting in 2001. The DMZ is, as always, full of conventional weapons," said Koh Yu-hwan, professor at the North Korean studies department at Dongguk University in Seoul.

"If it was intentional shooting, North Korea might have wanted to keep tensions up around the Korean peninsula and try to grab the attention of South Korea and the international community."

A senior State Department official said in Washington on Wednesday North Korea appeared ready to resume three-way talks with China and the United States. After an initial inconclusive three-way round in April, the North has reverted to insisting on direct talks just with the United States.

Separately, US Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton told Japanese reporters the United States was ready to hold talks with North Korea and China if they were expanded to include South Korea and Japan later.

Colonel Lee Hong-ki, spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters it was too early to say exactly what type of machinegun had been used in the incident, which took place at 6:10 am (0910 NZT on Wednesday) and was over very quickly.

Asked whether South Korea would protest to the North, Lee said: "We will carry out the investigation and based on the results we will determine the next step."

The US-led United Nations Command was also investigating.

A map located the incident to a stretch of the DMZ near the Imjin River north of the South Korean capital Seoul. The firing was between observation posts on either side of the so-called Military Demarcation Line at the heart of the DMZ.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement earlier the North had used a machinegun but did not specify what kind.

Lee said North Korea fired four shots in a single burst at a South Korean post. The South answered with a warning broadcast and returned fire with 17 shots a minute after the North.

No one was wounded on the South side, the statement added.

There was no immediate comment from the North.

The navies of the two Koreas engaged in a deadly firefight along their disputed maritime border in June 2002. Six South Korean sailors and an estimated 13 Northern seamen were killed.

Financial markets were closed in South Korea on Thursday for a public holiday. South Korean markets were badly hit after the nuclear crisis first flared last October. Spreads on South Korean dollar bonds widened on Thursday, in part because of the shooting, Hong Kong traders said.

The nuclear crisis erupted last year when US officials said North Korea had said it had a secret nuclear programme.

North and South Korea are technically at war after their 1950-53 conflict, pitting US-led United Nations Forces and Chinese-backed North Korea, ended in an armed truce.

Incidents along the north-south Korean border

Following is a chronology of major incidents and North Korean incursions across the heavily fortified Demilitarised Zone separating North and South Korea and the disputed maritime boundary between the rival states:

January 1968 - A 31-man North Korean commando team infiltrates Seoul in an attempt to attack the Blue House presidential office; 29 are shot dead, one is captured, one kills himself.

October 1968 - About 130 North Korean commandos land on the east coast of South Korea; 100 are shot dead and seven are captured.

August 1976 - About 30 North Korean soldiers kill two US army officers with axes in the Joint Security Area of the Panmunjom border truce village.

September 1996 - A North Korean submarine with 26 commandos aboard runs aground on the east coast of South Korea. Twenty-four are killed, including 11 commandos believed to have died in group suicide; one is captured and one escaped.

June 1998 - Nine North Korean commandos are found dead aboard a minisub caught in fishing nets, off Sokcho on the east coat of South Korea.

Dec 18, 1998 - The South Korean navy sinks submersible North Korean spy vessel; one frogman is found dead in the Sea of Japan east of the Korean peninsula.

June 1999 - At least 17 and as many as 80 North Korean sailors are killed after naval firefight in which one of the North's vessels was sunk and others damaged. Clash followed nine consecutive days of North Korean incursions into South Korean waters.

June 2002 - A clash between South and North Korean naval vessels in the Yellow Sea sinks one South Korean frigate and kills six South Korean sailors and an estimated 13 North Koreans.

December 2002 - South Korea and the US-led United Nations issue complaint after North Korean border guards carry banned 7.62 mm machine guns into the DMZ in violation of rules limiting soldiers' weapons in the area to personal firearms with 30 rounds of ammunition per guard.

- REUTERS