North, South Korea Soldiers Exchange Fire

[Seraphim]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=535&ncid=535&e=2&u=/ap/20030717/ap_on_re_as/koreas_dmz_shooting



11 minutes ago

SEOUL, South Korea - South and North Korean soldiers briefly exchanged gunfire along their border on Thursday, but the South said it suffered no 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.


North Korean soldiers fired four rounds at 6:10 a.m., and South Korean soldiers fired 17 rounds in response one minute later, said Maj. Lee of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff.


The incident happened near the South Korean town of Yonchon, said Lee, who did not give his first name.


Over the decades, violence has periodically broken out at the DMZ, though such incidents have tapered off in recent years. The shooting Thursday comes amid heightened tension over North Korea (news - web sites)'s suspected development of nuclear weapons.


The 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.

[James]

Thw two sides signed a cease fire in 1953, but they are still offically at war with each other. Back in the '90's there was at least one instance where NK subs put people ashore. They were hunted down and killed by ROK soldiers.

A guy I work with was a USN Corpsman for the USMC. He was on a 30 day patrol on the DMZ in 1999. My buddy was knifed by an infiltrator one night, and a Marine shot the guy. He was some kind of NK SOF, probably on his "graduation" excercise.

Crazy stuff.

[Duke]

KPA are always up to something.

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9609/19/korea.am.update/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9609/20/korea/index.html
http://www-cgi.cnn.com/WORLD/9611/05/korea/index.html

[Seraphim]

Thw two sides signed a cease fire in 1953, but they are still offically at war with each other. Back in the '90's there was at least one instance where NK subs put people ashore. They were hunted down and killed by ROK soldiers.

A guy I work with was a USN Corpsman for the USMC. He was on a 30 day patrol on the DMZ in 1999. My buddy was knifed by an infiltrator one night, and a Marine shot the guy. He was some kind of NK SOF, probably on his "graduation" excercise.

Crazy stuff.

Was your friend alright? :(

[Seraphim]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=7&u=/ap/20030717/ap_on_re_as/koreas_dmz_shooting_7


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 (news - web sites)'s suspected development of nuclear weapons, and such shooting incidents in the DMZ are rare. In recent years, however, reconciliation efforts have moved forward despite such outbreaks of violence.


In Washington, the Pentagon (news - web sites) had no comment.


North Korean soldiers fired four rounds at 6:10 a.m., and South Korean soldiers fired 17 rounds in response one minute later, said Maj. Lee of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff. He speculated the North Koreans were using machine guns, and said the South was using a machine gun called a K-3.


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


Lee, who did not give his first name, said he could not comment on whether the South Korean soldiers were violating the weaponry rules. He said the incident happened near the South Korean town of Yonchon.


Over the decades, violence has periodically erupted at the DMZ, though such incidents have tapered off in recent years. The area is laced with tank traps, 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.

[James]

He was a tough cookie - had one of the Marines stitch him up. The wounds weren't deep, just a gash on the back of his neck, and one on his shoulder blade. He stayed out for the rest of the patrol.

[Seraphim]

http://www.msnbc.com/news/939145.asp?0bl=-0


Shooting erupts along Korean DMZ

Incident occurs amid signs of hope for talks on nuclear crisis


MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

SEOUL, South Korea, July 17 — South Korean soldiers exchanged machine gun fire with North Korean troops on Thursday in the Demilitarized Zone, the divided peninsula’s heavily fortified frontier, the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. The firefight erupted against a backdrop of high tension over Pyongyang’s apparent pursuit of nuclear weapons but amid reports that talks seeking a peaceful solution might restart.



NORTH KOREA fired four shots at a South Korean army position in the DMZ in the center of the peninsula around 6:10 a.m. (2100 GMT on Wednesday). The South answered with a warning broadcast and returned fire with 17 rounds, the statement said.
No one was wounded on the South side, the statement added.
There was no immediate report on the exchange in North Korea’s official media and the U.S. military in Seoul declined to comment.
Maj. Lee of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff 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.
The rare shooting took place as the United States and China are searching for a way to persuade North Korea to enter talks on abandoning Pyongyang’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.
The nuclear crisis erupted last year when U.S. officials said North Korea had said it was pursuing a secret nuclear arms program, which the United States fears could threaten its allies in the region and destabilize Northeast Asia.
The last shooting incident along the DMZ, a no-man’s land that bisects the peninsula, took place in November 2001 at a point on the frontier north of Seoul.
The navies of the two Koreas engaged in a deadly firefight along their disputed maritime border in June 2002. Six South Korean sailors and an estimated 13 Northern seamen were killed.
North and South Korea are technically still at war after their 1950-53 conflict, pitting U.S.-led United Nations Forces and Chinese-backed North Korea, ended in an armed truce.



Tensions began rising anew on the Korean Peninsula last year when U.S. officials said Pyongyang had admitted to pursuing a uranium enrichment program in violation of a 1994 pact. The U.S. cut fuel oil supplies provided to North Korea under the same agreement, prompting North Korea to expel U.N. nuclear monitors and announce withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
The White House said Tuesday that North Korea had told the United States it had completed the reprocessing of fuel rods into bomb-grade plutonium. Experts were trying to assess whether this claim was true or an effort to press the United States into negotiations on Pyongyang’s terms.

TALKS ON TALKS
The shooting incident came as new hope emerged that North Korea was willing to resume three-way talks with the United States and China on its nuclear weapons program. A senior Chinese official will visit Washington this week to discuss the issue, a senior U.S. State Department official said on Wednesday.
“We have heard they are willing to resume Beijing-style talks,” the senior State Department official said, referring to talks between U.S., North Korean and Chinese officials in April. The official said the United States wanted to include Japan and South Korea but had not ruled out three-way talks.
The official said the United States had learned of North Korea’s willingness to hold three-way talks — after months of demanding bilateral discussions — from China, which has been pushing both sides to resume discussions.
“We have been in very close touch with the Chinese, and (from) what we have heard so far it appears the North Koreans are willing to resume the Beijing talks,” he said.
“The Chinese are working very hard on this. We will continue to press for five, but we will keep talking (and) keep in very close touch with the Chinese,” the official said, adding that Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo was due in Washington for talks later this week.
Earlier Wednesday, a Japanese daily, quoting an unidentified Chinese government source in Beijing reported that North Korea had told the United States it would agree to multilateral talks on its nuclear weapons program if Washington guaranteed not to undermine Kim Jong Il’s government.
Quoting an unidentified Chinese government source in Beijing, the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper said North Korean diplomats at the United Nations made the proposal when they held unofficial talks with U.S. counterparts on July 8.



“We would be ready to accept five-nation talks if a promise was made to guarantee (the survival of) the regime,” the Japanese daily quoted a North Korean diplomat as telling the U.S. officials.
North Korea has previously said the 9-month-old crisis over its nuclear ambitions could only be defused by bilateral talks with the U.S. and a non-aggression treaty between the two.
The United States has insisted on multilateral discussions, preferably to include South Korea, Japan and China.
The U.S., China and North Korea met in Beijing in April to seek a diplomatic solution to the standoff but made little progress.

CHINESE INVOLVEMENT
China, unnerved by the crisis, sent an envoy to Pyongyang this week in an apparent bid to bring North Korea to the table.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell discussed the situation with his Chinese counterpart on Wednesday.
“The two sides agreed to keep contact and exert efforts to further the Sino-U.S. constructive and cooperative relationship,” China’s official Xinhua news agency said after Powell spoke by telephone with Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing.
Beijing supports a multilateral framework for the negotiations that would allow for bilateral meetings on the sidelines, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official told a briefing for Western diplomats in Beijing on Tuesday.
Japan’s top government spokesman, Yasuo Fukuda, said Tokyo would press for five-way talks, which he said could be more effective in persuading the reclusive communist state to abandon its nuclear ambitions.


“Nothing will move forward without talks. Participation by Japan and South Korea would be more effective and therefore we call for five-nation talks,” he told reporters.
In Washington on Tuesday, U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher stressed the U.S. demand for multilateral talks. “Our interest is in multilateral discussions in an expanded multilateral setting, period. (I am) not entertaining any other proposals.”
U.S. officials believe the North already has one or two nuclear bombs.



PERRY WARNS OF DRIFT TOWARD WAR
Former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry, meanwhile, told The Washington Post that the United States and North Korea are drifting toward war, perhaps as early as this year. He also warned that terrorists could purchase a North Korean nuclear device and plant it in a U.S. city.
“I think we are losing control” of the situation, Perry told The Post in an interview. “The nuclear program now under way in North Korea poses an imminent danger of nuclear weapons being detonated in American cities.”
Perry said he reached his conclusions after extensive conversations with senior Bush administration officials, South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun and senior officials in China.

The Associated Press and ******* contributed to this report.

[digitalghost]

Excuse my lack of knowledge but what would "happen" if US pulled out of south korea and dindt guard the "DMZ" its a legitimate question and should not be looked at as an opportunity to critisize and laugh at me becuase of my lack of knowledge

thank you

[Smoothie104]

Actually Digital,

This was mentioned in the press a few weeks ago.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/03/07/wkor07.xml