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North Korean soldiers fired four machine gun rounds at a South Korean Army guard post in the Demilitarized Zone at 6:10 Thursday morning, and South Korean soldiers responded with 17 rounds a minute later, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. No casualties were reported.
The incident occurred 20 kilometers north of Yeoncheon. Three of the rounds shot by the North reportedly struck the lower part of the concrete barrier of the guard post. The caliber of the rounds was estimated to be 14.5mm. The South returned fire from a K-3 machine gun, then made a warning announcement over a loudspeaker.
This is the first time that an exchange of gunfire has occurred within the DMZ since Nov. 27, 2001.
The Joint Chiefs said that an alert was issued to ROK Army units in the area, but that no unusual movement by North Korean units was observed. The armistice committee of the United Nations Command sent a survey team headed by British Brigadier General John King to investigate the incident.
The North fired from a distance of 1,100 meters, a military source said. That combined with the fact that three of the four rounds hit the guard post indicates that the gunfire was deliberate rather than accidental, he said. A high-ranking official at the Defense Ministry said that the incident may have been a warning by the North that it may provoke a hostile exchange at the DMZ if international society applies any more pressure against Pyongyang due to the nuclear issue.
Still, there is a high possibility that the gunfire was an accident, other sources said, considering that no unusual movement by North Korean troops was detected, and the incident occurred at a time when the North Korean soldiers change shifts.
(Yoo Yong-won, kysu@chosun.com )
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