The Hindu : Koreas exchange fire

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 18, 2003

International

International

Koreas exchange fire

By P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE July 17. In a politically sensitive but militarily insignificant episode, the troops of the two Koreas today exchanged fire, very briefly though, across the demilitarised zone that separates the two sides of the divided peninsula in China's neighbourhood.

The firing, which caused no casualties insofar as South Korea broke the news, prompted China to urge both Koreas to "remain calm and avoid actions that could lead to a military escalation'' on the Korean peninsula, whose non-nuclearisation Beijing has been actively seeking to promote at this stage. The brief exchange of fire, near Yeoncheon some 60 km north of Seoul along the border that separates the two Koreas, has been viewed seriously in the Asia Pacific diplomatic circles, in view of Pyongyang's suspected weapons `programme'.

It is in this context that China today announced that its Vice-Foreign Minister, Dai Bingguo, had gone to the United States to discuss the North Korean nuclear issue with the U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and others in Washington. Mr. Dai had only a few days ago returned from North Korea, where he met that country's supreme leader, Kim Jong-il, among others to discuss their strategic bottom line concerning their suspected nuclear-weapons `programme'. The current Dai mission to Washington is a sequel to his recent talks with the Russian and North Korean leaders. The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Kong Quan, said in Beijing today that China was now playing the part of "a mediator to promote dialogue'' between the U.S. and the DPRK. Detailing the inter-Korean exchange of fire across the demilitarised zone, the spokesmen of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in Seoul that the DPRK soldiers first fired four machine-gun rounds. In retaliation, the South Korean troops resorted to 17 rounds of rifle-fire after sounding out warnings about the North's "violation of the armistice agreement.''

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