North Korea accused South Korea's military of opening fire Sunday towards its side of the tense land border, in what it termed a "grave armed provocation".

It said the South's military fired 90 mm recoilless guns towards a civil police post in the North on the eastern sector of the border in the early afternoon.

The firing, "seriously threatening the safety of civil policemen of the north side on routine duty", was designed "to deliberately aggravate the situation" in the border buffer zone, the official Korean Central News Agency said.

A "touch-and-go situation" prevails along the border due to such undisguised military provocation, it said.

South Korea's military denied the North's claim, Yonhap news agency reported.

"We checked whether the report is true but the command and control post said there has been no such incident," it cited a military official as saying.

Seoul's forces have been ordered on heightened alert since the mysterious sinking of a South Korean warship near the disputed sea border with the North on March 26.

South Korea has not so far accused the North of involvement in the sinking, while the North has remained silent about the incident which left 46 sailors missing and feared dead.

North Korean accusations of provocation along the heavily fortified land border are not new, and there have been occasional exchanges of fire.

A buffer strip known as the Demilitarised Zone extends for two kilometres (1.25 miles) on each side of the actual borderline.

earlier related report
N.Korea's Kim hosts diplomat banquet amid China visit hopes
Seoul (AFP) April 4, 2010 - Kim Jong-Il has hosted a dinner party for the new Chinese ambassador to North Korea, state media said Sunday, amid reports the reclusive leader was set to visit Beijing.

The dinner on Saturday was attended by top North Korean military and party officials, the country's official Korean Central News Agency said.

When Kim appeared with new Chinese ambassador Liu Hongcai, "all the participants warmly welcomed him with highest tribute", it said.

"They expressed the steadfast will of the parties and peoples of the two countries to further develop and consolidate generation after generation," the agency said.

The dinner fuelled speculation that Kim's anticipated visit to Beijing is being delayed, the South's Yonhap news agency said. But local television reports did not rule the possibility of a trip this week.

South Korean officials said last week there was a "high level of possibility" that Kim would soon visit China. Kim previously travelled by train to China in 2000, 2001, 2004 and 2006. He reportedly dislikes flying.

Yonhap quoted intelligence officials in Seoul last week that an advance team of North Korean officials may already be in China to arrange Kim's trip.

Analysts say such a trip would be aimed at seeking badly needed economic aid from China, and the North in return may feel bound to return to long-stalled six-nation nuclear disarmament talks.

China is North Korea's major ally and its most important source of food and energy.

"KCNA's report clearly suggests Kim is still in Pyongyang. I believe the report is aimed at dispelling rampant speculation about him," Kim Yong-Hyun, a professor at Dongguk University in Seoul, told AFP.

"Yet Kim's trip to Beijing is still possible this week or later," he added.

The North angrily quit the talks in April last year and vowed to restart production of weapons-grade plutonium. It carried out its second atomic weapons test the following month.

Pyongyang says it will not go back to the nuclear dialogue until United Nations sanctions are lifted, and until the United States makes a commitment to hold talks on a formal peace treaty.

North Korea had agreed in previous rounds of the six-nation talks to end its nuclear weapons drive in return for security guarantees and badly needed fuel assistance.

The talks involve China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States.