3 N. Koreans Die in Clash Near Border

Border troops clashed with a group of North Korean soldiers who crossed the heavily fortified frontier Friday, killing three of them, U.S. and South Korean officials said.

A U.S. military spokesman said it appeared to be North Korea’s most serious violation in recent years of the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

The U.N. Command, which guards the south’s border from invasion, will protest to the north over the incident, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said.

It said the U.S.-led command would call for a meeting of the Military Armistice Commission, which operates from the border village of Panmunjom and supervises the armistice agreement.

But a U.S. spokesman said a decision had not yet been made.

The three slain North Korean soldiers were in full combat uniform, a Seoul government source said. But the source said it was not known if they were trying to infiltrate the south or were taking part in military training.

The U.S. military spokesman said there was an exchange of fire in the central section of the 2.5-mile-wide demilitarized zone that has divided the peninsula since the end of the Korean War. He said one South Korean was injured.

The spokesman said a South Korean patrol intercepted a North Korean patrol half a mile south of the military demarcation line down the middle of the zone.

A joint U.N. team was sent to the border to investigate the shooting.

The two Koreas are actively engaged in dialogue to improve relations. Seoul officials fear that the incident could hamper efforts to implement a nonaggression pact signed last December.