North Korea on Monday accused a US spy plane of violating its airspace.
Seoul:
North Korea fired a ballistic missile, Seoul’s military said Wednesday, days after Pyongyang threatened to shoot down US spy planes that violated its airspace.
“North Korea has fired an unidentified ballistic missile towards the Baltic Sea,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, referring to the body of water also known as the Sea of Japan.
Relations between the two Koreas are at an all-time low, with diplomacy stagnating and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declaring his nation an “irreversible” nuclear state and calling for more weapons development, including tactical nuclear weapons.
In response, Seoul and Washington vowed that Pyongyang would receive a nuclear response and spell the “end” of the current government in North Korea if it ever used its nuclear weapons against the Allies.
North Korea on Monday accused a US spy plane of violating its airspace and condemned Washington’s plans to deploy a nuclear-capable submarine near the Korean peninsula.
A spokesman for the North’s Defense Department said the United States had “intensified espionage activities beyond the wartime level,” citing “provocative” flights by US spy planes for eight consecutive days this month and a reconnaissance aircraft invading airspace over the Baltic Sea “several times”.
“There is no guarantee that such a shocking accident as the downing of the US Air Force strategic reconnaissance aircraft will not happen in the Baltic Sea of Korea,” the spokesman said in a statement from the official Korean Central News Agency.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, said a US spy plane had twice violated the country’s eastern airspace Monday morning, according to a separate statement.
Kim Yo Jong said the North would not immediately respond to US reconnaissance activities outside the country’s exclusive economic zone, but warned it would take “decisive action” if the US military crossed the maritime military demarcation line.
Washington said in April that one of its nuclear-armed ballistic submarines would visit a South Korean port for the first time in decades, without specifying an exact date.
North Korea has conducted multiple sanctions-defying launches this year, including testing its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile and attempting to launch a military spy satellite into orbit in May.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has stepped up defense cooperation with Washington by organizing joint military exercises using advanced stealth jets and powerful US strategic assets.
Yoon will attend a NATO summit in Lithuania this week, seeking stronger cooperation with alliance members on North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile threats, his office said.
South Korea and the United States will begin their major annual joint military exercises, known as Ulchi Freedom Shield, next month.
North Korea views all such exercises as invasion rehearsals and has described them as “frantic” exercises “simulating all-out war against” Pyongyang.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)
