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Troops hurl taunts over border zone

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published October 12, 2006

PANMUNJOM, Korea - Spitting across the demarcation line that separates the two armies. Making throat-slashing hand gestures. Flashing their middle fingers. Trying to talk to the South Korean troops.

North Korean troops in the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas have been more boldly trying to provoke guards on the other side since the North claimed to have detonated a nuclear bomb Monday, a U.S. military spokesman said.

"They're walking a little taller," Army Maj. Jose DeVarona of Fayetteville, N.C., said during a tour of the zone Wednesday. "They're more confident about making contact." Still, he said, the overall situation was calm.

North and South Korean soldiers face each other in the village of Panmunjom, a cluster of blue huts inside the 2.5-mile-wide, 156-mile-long buffer strip. About 200 U.S. troops are also stationed along the DMZ.

The village is jointly overseen by the U.S.-led U.N. Command and North Korea, an arrangement established in 1953 to supervise the cease-fire that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

North Korean troops were not seen engaging in provocative antics during the tour Wednesday.

The DMZ is one of the world's most potentially dangerous flash points, but Panmunjom is also a tourist trap where thousands of visitors come each year to gawk at the North Korean soldiers.

U.S. Army Capt. Craig Cunningham, who serves at an observation post where tourists can peer into North Korea, said American troops weren't worried about the recent tensions blowing up into a war.

He said the situation along the border was relatively calm, considering the two sides fought a devastating war and share the world's most heavily armed border.

Swedish Maj. Gen. Theolin Sture, who was on a two-year tour for the United Nations, said he has visited the North Korean side of the border and it seemed more relaxed.

"They behave as if they're victorious: 'We won the war and this is what it looks like,' " Sture said.

[Last modified October 12, 2006, 00:31:40]