Hard Bargaining

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA: Pyongyang upped the ante in its on-again, off- again confrontation with South Korea Friday when a small troop of North Korean soldiers crossed the demarcation line of the demilitarized zone separating the two nations. Seven soldiers ventured 20 to 30 yards into the South's territory and fired rifles in the air but retreated an hour later after South Korean border guards returned14 warning shots. North Korea hopes its latest violation of the 43-year-old armistice between the two nations will draw the U.S. back into direct talks with Pyongyang over peace on the Korean peninsula, says TIME's David Jackson. "For years the North has tried to go around the South and negotiate directly with the US. Basically, North Korea figures Washington is easier to bargain with than South Korea, but U.S. policy has been to insist that the future of the Korean Peninsula be settled between Pyongyang and Seoul." Although both countries are still technically at war, having never signed a peace treaty, both see reunification as inevitable. With each incursion, Jackson says, North Korea is trying to improve a bargaining position made weak by recent famines and its international status as a pariah. The 1953 armistice ending the three-year Korean War allows just 35 soldiers on each side of the zone, permits soldiers to carry only sidearms and prohibits gunfire. Pyongyang has declared the armistice meaningless and has repeatedly demonstrated its scorn for the pact. In early April, 100 North Korean soldiers entered the demilitarized zone on three consecutive nights. North Korea also ejected foreign cease-fire observers from its territory and closed its offices in the truce village of Panmunjom. After the April incursions, President Clinton and South Korean President Kim Young-sam suggested that the two Koreas meet with the U.S. and China to discuss a permanent peace accord. North Korea indicated that it is interested in signing a longterm peace accord but only with the U.S., not with Seoul. Lamia Abu-Haidar