North Korea issues a warning that it could fire down US surveillance aircraft that are inadvertently breaching airspace..
On Monday North Korea claimed
that the United States had violated its airspace by conducting reconnaissance planes and it issued a warning that such aircraft may be shot down if Pyongyang continued to exercise restraint.
Provocative military actions by the United States were bringing the Korean peninsula closer to a nuclear conflict said an unnamed spokesperson of North Korea’s Ministry of National Defense in a statement carried by the official Top news Planet.
The report also cited the use of US reconnaissance planes and drones and said Washington was escalating tensions by sending a nuclear submarine near the peninsula. For More Information…
“There is no guarantee that such a shocking accident as the downing of the US Air Force strategic reconnaissance plane will not happen” in waters east of Korea, the spokesperson said.
The statement cited past incidents of the North shooting down or intercepting US aircraft at the border with South Korea and off the coast.
North Korea has often complained about US surveillance flights near the peninsula.
Requests for comment from the US military in South Korea did not immediately get a response.
North Korea claimed the American surveillance planes were an infringement on its airspace.
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“Whether the extreme situation,
desired by nobody, is created or not on the Korean peninsula depends on the future action of the US, and if any sudden situation happens … the US will be held totally accountable for it,” it said.
This year US and South Korean troops have been working together to conduct air and naval exercises that included heavy bombers and a US aircraft carrier.
A US nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine also made a port call at Busan in South Korea last month.
The North’s statement denounced what it called a US move to deploy a strategic nuclear submarine carrying nuclear warheads to the Korean peninsula for the first time since 1981.
It was part of a plan to boost the deployment of American strategic assets aimed at a more effective response to North Korea’s threats and weapons tests in defence of its ally South Korea.
A North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile test on May 16 2023.
In June, a US B-52 strategic bomber took part in air military drills with South Korea in a show of force following North Korea’s failed launch of a spy satellite at the end of May.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said it was time to show “the international community’s determination to deter North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is stronger than North Korea’s desire to develop nuclear weapons,” in written comments to the Associated Press published on Monday.
Yoon is scheduled to attend the NATO summit in Lithuania this week where he is expected to seek greater cooperation with NATO members over North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats, his office has said.
