Two Koreas exchange shots across border

A North Korean soldier (C) stands guard as South Korean soldiers talk at the truce village of Panmunjom, in the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas, about 34 miles north of Seoul, April 4, 2007. North and South Korea briefly exchanged gunshots on Monday in the first such skirmish on their heavily armed border in just over a year, a military official said.

SEOUL (Reuters) - North and South Korea briefly exchanged gunshots on Monday in the first such skirmish on their heavily armed border in just over a year, a military official said.

There were no reports of any casualties.

"A few shots were fired from the North, and a few warning shots were fired (back) from this side," the official with the office of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff told Reuters.

The shooting came a day before the start of working level talks among regional powers, including the two Koreas, in the South Korean side of the buffer zone that has divided the peninsula for more than half a century.

The talks are part of a wider international effort to persuade North Korea to end its nuclear weapons programme in exchange for aid.

"No reaction or unusual movements by the North Korean military have been detected following our return fire," the Joint Chiefs said in a statement.

The shots landed about 100 meters (yards) short of a South Korean guard post inside the Demilitarized Zone border, it said, more than 100 km (60 miles) east of the Panmunjom truce village where the six-country talks are scheduled.

One North Korea analyst speculated the incident may have had more to do with internal tensions within the North Korean military as Pyongyang takes steps to disable its nuclear weapons program.

Baek Seung-joo, with the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, noted that those steps have come only months after the communist state was rallying its people with news of Pyongyang's first nuclear test.

"The North's military probably saw that there was consternation among its rank and file and felt the need to create tension," Baek said.

Leader Kim Jong-il has long maintained a policy of putting the military above the rest of society, using the decades-long conflict on the Korean peninsula as justification.