The Quickening

Two Koreas Fire Artillery Along Coast

North and South Korea exchanged artillery fire along their disputed western sea border on Wednesday, an official said, escalating tensions on the divided peninsula.

North Korea fired about 30 rounds of land-based artillery from its coast, an officer at the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul said.

South Korea, in response, immediately fired about 100 warning shots from a marine base on an island near the sea border, the officer said on condition of anonymity because of department policy.

He said no casualties or damage were immediately reported, and that the North's artillery fire landed in its waters while the South fired into the air.

Top presidential secretary Chung Chung-kil convened an emergency meeting of security-related officials on behalf of President Lee Myung-bak, who was making a state visit to India, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency. It said Lee was informed of the incident.

The exchange of fire came two days after the North designated two no-sail zones in the area through March 29 in a possible indication it may be preparing to conduct missile tests or other military exercises there. The zones include some South Korean-held waters.

In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters Tuesday that it was trying to determine precisely what might be behind the North's no-sail zone designation.

"In any kind of declaration like that we would encourage restraint on both sides," Crowley said before the exchange of fire.

The western sea border -- drawn by the American-led U.N. Command at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War -- is a constant source of tension between the two Koreas, with the North insisting the line be moved further south.

Navy ships of the two Koreas fought a brief gunbattle in November that left one North Korean sailor dead and three others wounded. They engaged in similar bloody skirmishes in 1999 and 2002.

The North has sent a series of mixed signals to the South recently.

It offered talks on restarting stalled joint-tour programs and a military dialogue on a joint industrial complex in the North earlier this month. The rival countries are scheduled to hold separate nonmilitary talks on the industrial park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong next week.

But the communist country also has escalated its rhetoric, with leader Kim Jong Il's all-powerful National Defense Commission threatening to attack the South and break off all dialogue over a reported South Korean contingency plan to handle turmoil in the North.

South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae-young said last week that his military should launch a pre-emptive strike on North Korea if there was a clear indication that the country was preparing a nuclear attack. The North responded by threatening war.

The two Koreas are still technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a formal peace treaty.

From: GlobalSec; WSB