Tensions rise as Koreas exchange fire

SOUTH KOREA exchanged machine gun fire with communist North Korea yesterday in a rare incident that could raise the diplomatic stakes just as Pyongyang appears set to return to talks on its nuclear ambitions.

The South's Joint Chiefs of Staff said its troops returned fire a minute after the North shot at an observation post in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the divided peninsula's fortified frontier.

The DMZ incident the last was in November 2001 took place as the United States and China sought to coax North Korea back into talks on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons aims. A US official said the North may be ready to return.

The incident could be seen as a precursor to heightened tensions on the world's last Cold War border, just days from the 50th anniversary on July 27 of the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

But the North has in the past raised tensions to attract attention or before climbing down to a compromise or concession.

"Everything that they have done on the DMZ over the course of the past few years has been done with a particular purpose," said Korea expert Scott Snyder of the Asia Foundation in Seoul.

"The North Koreans have continued to look for ways to remind the United States that it is out there and that they can do damage as a way of trying to draw attention."

In Washington, a State Department official said North Korea appeared ready to resume three-way talks with China and the United States. After an inconclusive round in April, the North reverted to insisting on direct US talks.

Colonel Lee Hong-ki, spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters it was too early to say what type of machine gun had been used in the brief incident, which took place at 6:10am (5:10pm EDT on Wednesday).

Asked whether South Korea would protest, 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 Seoul. The firing was between observation posts on either side of the DMZ's demarcation line.

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

No one was wounded in the South. There was no immediate comment from the North.

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

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

The Koreas are technically at war after a conflict that pitted US-led UN forces against Chinese-backed North Korea and ended in an armed truce in 1953.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard arrives in Seoul on Thursday for talks with President Roh Moo-hyun.