Two Koreas exchange gunfire along border

Seoul, Aug 1: North and South Korean troops exchanged gunfire across their heavily fortified border for the first time in about a year, a military official said today.

North Korean troops fired two shots at a South Korean guard post near the Demilitarised Zone late yesterday and South Korean troops returned six shots, an official said by telephone.

''No one was injured in the incident,'' the Joint Chiefs of Staff official said, referring to South Korean troops. There was no word if any North Korean soldiers were hurt.

The Joint Chiefs issued a statement saying the UN Command Military Armistice Commission, monitoring a truce that halted fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War and has left the two countries technically at war since then, will look into the skirmish.

One of the shots hit the guard post, causing South Korean troops to immediately return fire, the official said.

Last October, North Korea fired a bullet toward a South Korean guard post and the South returned fire. The two navies clashed along a disputed maritime border in 2002, resulting in deaths and casualties on both sides.

MISSILE TESTS

Ties have become notably strained since North Korea defied international warnings, including from South Korea, and test-fired seven missiles on July 5th.

After a frosty inter-Korean ministerial meeting days after the tests, Seoul said it would suspend food aid until Pyongyang returned to stalled six-country talks on ending its nuclear weapons programme.

North Korean delegates stormed out of the meeting and said the South would ''pay a price'' for spoiling inter-Korean ties.

Since then, North Korea has halted several projects with the South, including the reunion of families separated by the war.

Today, North Korea said it would be difficult to hold a joint ceremony to mark the Aug. 15, 1945 anniversary of the end of Japanese colonial rule over the peninsula due to recent flooding, a South Korean committee preparing for the event said.

North Korea has stationed most of its 1.2 million-man army near the DMZ. South Korea has more than 650,000 troops, who are supported by about 30,000 US troops.

In another sign of the souring relationship, a South Korean commission issued a report today reiterating North Korea was to blame for the 1987 explosion of a Korean Air jet that killed 115.

Seoul has avoided bringing up that incident in recent years in the interest of its ''sunshine policy'' of engagement.

The United States put North Korea on its list of countries that support terrorism after the airliner bombing. North Korea has been keen to discuss how to get off that list in direct talks with Washington.

North Korean agents were also accused of attempting a presidential assassination in 1974, and in 1983 set off a bomb in Myanmar that killed 17 senior South Korean officials.

REUTERS