Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- North Korea should avoid more naval encounters that might raise tensions with South Korea, President Barack Obama’s spokesman said today after the two countries exchanged fire at sea.

“I would say to the North Koreans that we hope that there will be no further actions in the Yellow Sea that could be seen as an escalation,” Robert Gibbs said on the way to a memorial at Fort Hood, Texas, after a mass shooting there last week.

South and North Korean warships clashed off the peninsula’s western coast after the North’s vessel crossed a disputed sea border and ignored several warning shots, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in Seoul.

The first hostilities between the neighboring countries in seven years came a week before Obama is to visit South Korea as part of an Asian tour. His administration plans to send a special representative for North Korean policy, Stephen Bosworth, to Pyongyang in a bid to bring the regime back to disarmament talks, a White House official said yesterday, speaking on condition of anonymity because the decision hasn’t been announced.

“North Korea often creates this kind of incident as a get- out clause” if negotiations don’t go its way, said Phil Deans, a professor of international affairs at Temple University in Tokyo. “The Americans really want to engage with North Korea, resolve the nuclear issue and move on to the bigger problems they feel they have in the Middle East and Pakistan, but North Korea is very unpredictable and it’s very hard to do.”

Two-Minute Fight

The North Korean vessel ventured 1.3 kilometers (0.8 miles) into waters claimed by South Korea at about 10:33 a.m. local time today, triggering a two-minute fight that left 15 holes in the South Korean vessel, according to the military. The North’s ship returned across the border in flames after it was badly damaged, Yonhap News reported, citing a government official in Seoul whom it didn’t identify.

One North Korean was killed and three were injured, the Associated Press said, citing South Korean television. North Korea said its patrol ship was attacked first by South Korean warships while on “routine guard duty” in its own waters and demanded an apology.

North Korea said on Nov. 3 it finished reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods as of the end of August to extract plutonium used in nuclear weapons. The country detonated its second nuclear device in May, less than three years after its first test in 2006.

Friction between the U.S. and North Korea eased after an August visit to Pyongyang by former President Bill Clinton to secure the release of two detained U.S. journalists, paving the way for the direct talks announced yesterday.

Possible Scapegoat

Today’s skirmish may be a case of North Korea seeking a scapegoat in case talks don’t go its way or if Pyongyang decides to cancel the U.S. talks, Temple’s Deans said.

North Korea doesn’t recognize the boundary off the west coast, the scene of naval skirmishes in 1999 and 2002. The two nations have remained divided since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a cease-fire, and have never signed a peace treaty.

After the South Korean ship fired warning shots, the North Korean ship opened direct fire, the Joint Chiefs said in an e- mailed statement. The South’s vessel then fired back, it said. There were no South Korean casualties, and the military is on full alert for any additional provocation, according to the statement.

‘Regrettable’

The clash was “regrettable,” Brigadier General Lee Ki Sik of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters in Seoul. “We strongly protest to North Korea and urge the prevention of a recurrence of such events.”

He said he couldn’t confirm the extent of any damage to the North Korean ship or North Korean casualties.

North Korea’s military accused the South of violating its border. South Korean ships first opened fire, prompting the North Korean patrol ship to “deal a prompt retaliatory blow at the provokers,” the Supreme Command of the North’s army said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

To contact the reporters on this story: Bomi Lim in Seoul at blim30@bloomberg.net; Stuart Biggs in Tokyo at sbiggs3@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 10, 2009 12:39 EST