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.