SEOUL, South Korea — Shots fired from North Korea hit a South Korean guard post inside the Demilitarized Zone, Yonhap news agency reported on Sunday, citing the South Korean military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
South Korean troops returned fire and issued broadcast warnings after a guard unit in the town of Cheorwon was hit early Sunday morning, the JCS said.
There were no casualties reported, and a South Korean military official said the shots from the North did not appear to be intentional, according to Yonhap.
A military officer was cited as saying it was a common time of day for North Korean soldiers to change shifts, and that the weather was foggy at the time.
But Yonhap agency added that there had been no response from Pyongyang on the matter.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington believes the gunfire exchanged between North and South Korea was “accidental.”
“We think those were accidental. South Koreans did return fire. So far as we can tell, there was no loss of life on either side,” he told broadcaster ABC.
The DMZ has separated North and South Korea since the Korean War in the 1950s. The two Koreas have never officially made peace.
The zone is about 2½miles wide and around 155 miles long, and the inter-Korean border is heavily guarded.
The incident came a day after North Korean state media reported leader Kim Jong Un’s first public appearance in weeks.
Kim’s absence from the public eye for around three weeks had sparked speculation about his health and questions over what is happening in the isolated nation.
