NORTH and South Korean troops exchanged warning shots at their tense border yesterday, shortly before the US Defence Secretary Mr William Cohen flew to the area.
Southern troops on patrol within the demilitarized zone (DMZ) fired 10 shots into the air after spotting a group of North Korean soldiers who had crossed the border line, US and South Korean officials said.
"The North Korean soldiers fired back warning shots and withdrew," a Seoul military spokesman said. About an hour later, Mr Cohen flew by helicopter to the border village of Panmunjom, 100 km west of the flashpoint.
Standing at the DMZ, set up as a buffer zone under an armistice which ended the 1950-53 Korean War, Mr Cohen denounced North Korea's "decaying and dying" communist system and called on Pyongyang to make peace with South Korea.
Meanwhile, President Kim Young-sam of South Korea urged Pyongyang to accept a proposal for peace talks made by himself and President Clinton.
North Korea has said it will respond to the offer for four-state talks, also including China, next Wednesday, exactly one year after Mr Clinton and Mr Kim challenged Pyongyang to finally replace the Korean truce with a permanent peace.
Pyongyang, desperate for food to stave off looming famine, is expected to agree to come to the peace table, but with conditions attached, Seoul officials say. To prod Pyongyang into talks, Washington and Seoul have facilitated private food shipments to North Korea and chipped in to international charities.
The demarcation line runs through the middle of the four-km-wide DMZ. Numerous violent incidents have shattered the peace along what is now the world's last Cold War frontier. The most grisly was in 1976, when North Korean soldiers axed to death two US military officers pruning a tree in Panmunjom.
Mr Cohen, winding up his first visit to the western Pacific and Asia, said after visiting the border: "I think it's inevitable that the North cannot sustain itself, that the regime will collapse in one form or another, hopefully peacefully, perhaps violently."
Pyongyang's state radio attacked comments by Mr Cohen that virtually all of the 37,000 US troops in South Korea would remain there for the foreseeable future, even if the Koreas made peace and were united.
"This outrageous comment puts military pressure on us and, reveals the US military forces dangerous ambition for domination of the entire Korean peninsula," the radio said.