South Korea’s navy confirmed on Thursday a North Korean drone had breached the important thing no-fly zone across the presidential workplace throughout a uncommon incursion final month it had beforehand denied.
Military tensions on the Korean peninsula rose sharply final 12 months because the North performed sanctions-busting weapons exams practically each month, together with firing its most superior intercontinental ballistic missile ever.
Pyongyang then despatched 5 drones throughout the border into South Korean airspace on December 26, the primary such incident in 5 years, prompting Seoul to scramble jets to reply.
South Korea’s navy had already apologized after failing to shoot down any of the drones, regardless of a five-hour operation, which it blamed on the drones being “too small”.
It had additionally repeatedly denied experiences the drones had infiltrated the important thing no-fly zone, often known as P-73, that features the skies over the South Korean presidential workplace.
“It is not true that (the North Korean drone) did not pass over Yongsan,” Lee Sung-jun, a spokesperson for the Joint Chiefs of Staff mentioned on Thursday, referring to the world the place the presidential workplace and defence ministry are positioned.
A navy official mentioned an investigation had discovered that “the trail of a small drone of the enemy” had handed by way of the northern finish of the no-fly zone.
“We make it clear that there is no problem with the safety of the Yongsan office,” the official mentioned.
‘Worrisome’
South Korea’s navy mentioned final week the North “could not have obtained meaningful information” with its drone incursion due to what it described as Pyongyang’s low know-how stage.
“It is worrisome that Yongsan, where South Korea’s top security control facilities are located, was infiltrated in the height of tension between the two Koreas,” Yang Moo-jin, a professor on the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, instructed AFP.
He mentioned the preliminary denials would additionally probably harm public belief.
South Korea beneath President Yoon Suk-yeol has beefed up joint navy drills with the United States and is discussing with Washington joint planning and workouts involving US nuclear property.
North Korean research scholar Ahn Chan-il instructed AFP the hawkish Yoon had seemingly turn into a “feared figure” in Pyongyang.
The drone incursion might have been a check flight in case of a future assassination try, he mentioned. —Agence France-Presse
