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Wednesday, November 28, 2001 Apology demanded over border shooting ASSOCIATED PRESS in Seoul Updated at 6.36pm: South Korea's ruling and opposition parties demanded on Wednesday that North Korea apologize for starting an exchange of gunfire along the heavily armed border. North Korean soldiers fired two or three shots Tuesday, shattering a window at the South Korean guard post, officials from the South said. South Korean border guards returned the fire, unloading 15 rounds inside the tense four kilometre-wide Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas. Neither side reported injuries. ''The North Korean authorities must explain why and how the incident occurred and sincerely apology to our side,'' said Lee Nak-yon, spokesman for the ruling Millennium Democratic Party. ''The government must lodge a strong protest and receive the North's promise that such an incident will never occur again,'' said a statement by the opposition Grand National Party. Also Wednesday, the American-led United Nations Command said it was not yet determined whether the North's gunfire was intentional or accidental. The UN command, a signatory of the 1950-53 Korean War armistice, oversees the southern side of the buffer zone. The command sent a message to North Korea through the border liaisons office late Tuesday calling for a meeting to investigate the incident. North Korea received the message but has not yet responded, said command spokesman Stephen Oertwig. Tuesday's incident occurred amid a stall in inter-Korean reconciliation. The Koreas have been at odds over South Korea's decision to put its forces on alert after the September 11 attacks in the United States. The South has said its move didn't involve North Korea, which is on a US list of countries that sponsor terrorism. Pyongyang has accused Seoul of lying. The Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. The Koreas share the world's most heavily fortified border, with nearly 2 million troops deployed on both sides. About 37,000 US troops are stationed in South Korea. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SCMP.com is the premier information resource on Greater China. With a click, you will be able to access information on Business, Markets, Technology and Property in the territory. Bookmark SCMP.com for more insightful and timely updates on Hong Kong, China, Asia and the World. Voted the Best Online newspaper outside the US and brought to you by the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong's premier English language news source. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
