SEOUL, South Korea – A North Korean (search) soldier fired a single shot at a South Korean (search) guard post on Wednesday, breaking a window pane, South Korea said. There were no injuries, and North Korea said it was an accident, the South said.
The incident came as representatives from six nations met in Beijing (search) to discuss North Korea's suspected development of nuclear weapons.
The North Korean shot hit a South Korean post in the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas, according to the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul.
Soon after, North Korean officials telephoned their Southern counterparts and said the incident was a misfire resulting from negligence and that that they had no "hostile intentions," the office said.
South Korean soldiers did not return fire.
On July 17, South and North Korean soldiers briefly traded machine-gun fire in the DMZ, a buffer created at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War to keep opposing armies apart.
Decades ago, shooting incidents were commonplace along the DMZ, but they have tapered off in recent years.
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