WORLD
North Korea warns it may shoot down US spy planes violating its airspace
Baku, July 11, AZERTAC
North Korea accused the United States on Monday of violating its airspace by conducting surveillance flights and warned that, while Pyongyang was exercising restraint, such flights may be shot down, according to Reuters.
Provocative military actions by the United States were bringing the Korean peninsula closer to a nuclear conflict, an unnamed spokesperson of North Korea's Ministry of National Defence said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.
It cited the use of U.S. reconnaissance planes and drones and said Washington was escalating tensions by sending a nuclear submarine near the peninsula.
"There is no guarantee that such a shocking accident as the downing of the U.S. Air Force strategic reconnaissance plane will not happen," the spokesperson said.
The statement cited past incidents of North Korea shooting down or intercepting U.S. aircraft at the border with South Korea and off the coast. North Korea has often complained about U.S. surveillance flights near the peninsula.
Later on Monday, Kim Yo Jong - the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un - said Pyongyang would respond decisively if the U.S. military entered North Korea's economic zone again, KCNA said.
The Pentagon brushed aside Pyongyang's accusations of airspace violations and said the U.S. military adhered to international law.
"So those accusations are just accusations," Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters.
Asked about the North Korean statements, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller urged North Korea "to refrain from escalatory actions", and reiterated a call for it "to engage in serious and sustained diplomacy". Miller told a regular news briefing Washington was open to dialogue with North Korea without preconditions but Pyongyang had refused to engage in a meaningful way.
A North Korean flag flutters at the propaganda village of Gijungdong in North Korea, in this picture taken near the truce village of Panmunjom inside the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas, South Korea, July 19, 2022.
South Korea's military said North Korea's claim of airspace violation was not true, but U.S. air surveillance assets conduct routine reconnaissance flights around the peninsula.