Korean soldiers exchange fire at border

SEOUL, South Korea -- South and North Korean soldiers briefly exchanged machine gun fire along their border on Thursday, but the South Korean military said it did not suffer casualties in the shootout.

It was not immediately known whether any North Korean troops were injured or killed in the firefight in the Demilitarized Zone, a buffer area that was created at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War to keep opposing armies apart.

Tension on the Korean Peninsula is high over North Korea's suspected development of nuclear weapons, and such shooting incidents in the DMZ are rare. In recent years, however, negotiations and reconciliation efforts have moved forward despite such outbreaks of violence.

No Washington comment

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Dan Hetlage said: "The Pentagon is aware of the incident but has no comment."

North Korean soldiers fired four rounds at 6:10 a.m., and South Korean soldiers issued a warning broadcast before firing 17 rounds in response one minute later, said Maj. Lee of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said the North Korean fire came from a machine gun, and that the South was using a machine gun called a K-3.

Issued over a loudspeaker, the South Korean broadcast told the North Koreans that they were in "clear violation" of the terms of the armistice that ended the Korean War.

"Immediately stop the provocation," the broadcast said.

Under terms of the armistice, North and South Korean soldiers can patrol in the DMZ, but they are not allowed to move around with heavy weapons such as machine guns.

However, Lee said the two sides are allowed to keep machine guns inside observation posts, and that the guns used in the shootout were located in such posts. Lee, who did not give his first name, said the incident happened near the South Korean town of Yonchon, 35 miles north of the South Korean capital, Seoul.

Yonchon is 25 miles east of Panmunjom, a cluster of buildings where the armistice was signed. The U.S.-led United Nations Command controls the southern half of the DMZ and North Korea oversees the northern half.

Over the decades, violence has periodically erupted at the DMZ, though such incidents have tapered off in recent years. The 2.5 mile-wide, 155 mile-long zone is laced with minefields, fences and observation posts.

The nuclear dispute flared in October when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted it had a clandestine nuclear program in violation of a 1994 agreement with Washington.

The United States and its allies suspended fuel shipments promised under the 1994 deal, and Pyongyang retaliated by expelling U.N. monitors, restarting facilities capable of making fuel for nuclear bombs and withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

This week, U.S. officials said they were not sure whether North Korean representatives were bluffing or telling the truth when they claimed last week to have finished extracting plutonium -- a key ingredient for nuclear weapons -- from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods.

At the United Nations Wednesday, Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged North Korea and the United States to find a peaceful solution to nuclear dispute.

Annan said he had been in contact with both parties which have different ideas for discussions.

North Korea wants bilateral negotiations with Washington, but recently said it might consider U.S. demands for talks involving several nations, if it could also meet one-on-one with the United States.

On Wednesday, the North's state-run Rodong Sinmun said U.S. demands for multilateral talks to resolve the crisis were complicating the issue, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency. Washington says North Korea's nuclear ambitions are a regional threat and talks should include China, South Korea, Japan and Russia.