Powell calls for more Korea talks

Mr Powell said the US had no intention of attacking N Korea

US Secretary of State Colin Powell has ended his tour of East Asia by urging North Korea to resume nuclear talks.

Speaking in Seoul, Mr Powell said Pyongyang's ongoing nuclear programme was preventing the US from helping ordinary North Korean people.

Earlier on Tuesday South Korean troops were put on high alert after two holes were found in the wire along the buffer zone between North and South Korea.

Defence officials feared commandos or spies could have infiltrated the South.

But the defence ministry later said it had found no evidence of any infiltration, and it now seems likely the holes were cut by someone defecting or returning to the North.

Mr Powell's trip to Asia has been dominated by efforts to revive stalled six-way talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons plans.

The US Secretary of State held talks with South Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday, and the two men agreed to work together to push for an end to the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula.

"We continued to agree to devote maximum efforts to achieving this goal through multilateral diplomacy and six party talks," Mr Powell told reporters.

KOREAN BORDER Heavily fortified border has separated the two Koreas since 1950-53 war 240 km long and 4 km wide, the DMZ takes up about 5% of the Korean peninsula N Korea has 1.1m man army, S Korea and US forces total more than 700,000 One S Korean's journey North

He said the US did not intend to attack North Korea, but stressed that the "nuclear issue... (kept) the international community from assisting North Korea".

Late on Monday, however, North Korea warned that prospects for talks were getting dimmer every day, describing recent US-led naval exercises in Japanese waters as the "ultimate war action".

There have been three rounds of six-party talks so far, but Pyongyang refused to attend a fourth round in September.

The communist state sees no point in talking before the US presidential election on 2 November, says the BBC's correspondent in Seoul, Charles Scanlon.

Experts believe North Korea has already extracted enough plutonium for six or seven atomic bombs, although this is difficult to verify as Pyongyang will not submit to inspections from the UN's nuclear agency.

Huge manhunt

South Korea's military has now lifted a state of alert which was called earlier on Tuesday after two holes were discovered in the heavily fortified border fence between the two Koreas.

The breach near Cheolwon, 90 kilometres (54 miles) north of Seoul, prompted a massive manhunt for possible infiltrators.

South Korean army divisions manning the front line were placed on the highest state of alert, Jindogye-1, and dozens of additional roadblocks were set up between Seoul and the border.

An investigation team has now concluded that the holes were probably cut by a person from South Korea defecting to the North.

"Investigators believe the holes may have been cut by a defector to North Korea. So, we terminate anti-infiltration operations," JCS Brigadier General Hwang Jung-Sun is reported to have said.