North Korea launched this photograph of a drone it mentioned was found in Kaesong, with a spokesperson for the Korean Folks’s Military Normal Workers claiming within the state-run KCNA that troopers had shot down South Korean drones in September 2025 and on Jan. 4. (Yonhap)
The South Korean authorities and armed forces have launched an investigation into claims by North Korea that its territorial airspace was invaded by South Korean drones.
With Pyongyang alluding to the potential of a retaliatory response, inter-Korean relations are being put to the check after a seeming shift towards passive peace with the arrival of the Lee Jae Myung administration. Lee himself cited the severity of the state of affairs in ordering the institution of a joint navy and police investigation group.
On Sunday, the Blue Home Nationwide Safety Workplace issued an announcement to the press declaring that the administration would “decide the details in regards to the drone difficulty by way of a joint military-police investigation and disclose the findings in a immediate method.”
“We reiterate that the administration has no intention of scary or inciting North Korea,” it confused.
This was an official response to remarks made earlier that morning by Kim Yo-jong, the sister of Kim Jong-un and a vice division director of the Employees’ Celebration of Korea Central Committee, who wrote, “Clear is simply the truth that the drone from the ROK violated the airspace of our nation.”
“This requires express rationalization,” she mentioned in her assertion.
In a press release on Saturday by a spokesperson for the Korean Folks’s Military Normal Workers, North Korea claimed that South Korean drones had infiltrated its territorial airspace in September of final yr and on Jan. 4 of this yr. That assertion mentioned that South Korea ought to “be able to pay a excessive value for having dedicated one other provocation of infringing on the sovereignty of the DPRK,” utilizing the abbreviated type of North Korea’s formal title, the Democratic Folks’s Republic of Korea.
Commenting on the alleged drone infiltration on Jan. 4, North Korea claimed that its navy models had “detected and tracked an air goal shifting northward within the sky over the world of Hado-ri, Songhae-myon, Kanghwa County of Inchon Metropolis,” including that the drone in query was “outfitted with surveillance gadgets.”
It additionally mentioned {that a} drone departed from the world of Jeokseong township in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, at round 11:15 am on Sept. 27 final yr and entered the airspace round Pyongsan County in North Hwanghae Province earlier than being shot down by the North Korean navy the identical day and crash-landing right into a paddy in Jangpung County in Kaesong.
After the primary announcement by North Korea, the South Korean Ministry of Nationwide Protection responded on Saturday morning with an preliminary assertion through which it mentioned, “It has been confirmed that our armed forces didn’t function drones on the date claimed by North Korea.”
At round midday the identical day, the Blue Home held a Nationwide Safety Council working-level coordination assembly, after which it reiterated that “the navy had not operated any drones.” That night, Lee himself issued a press release ordering a “immediate and rigorous investigation by a joint navy and police investigation group,” noting that “whether it is true [that civilian drones entered North Korean airspace], this might be a extreme crime that threatens peace on the Korean Peninsula and nationwide safety.”
In her assertion on Sunday morning, Kim Yo-jong mentioned, “I, personally, respect that the ROK Ministry of Defence took a sensible selection for survival when it made public its official stand by no means to impress or irritate us.”
On the similar time, she confused, “The essence of the state of affairs lies not in whether or not its manipulator is from the navy or civilians.”
“In the event that they [South Korean officials] model it as a deed of a civilian group after which attempt to assert a principle that it’s not an infringement upon the sovereignty, they’ll see loads of UAVs by the DPRK’s civilian organizations,” she warned, suggesting the potential for a retaliatory response.
Administration insiders are involved that the state of affairs may undermine the effectiveness of efforts to scale back navy tensions since Lee took workplace, together with the suspension of loudspeaker broadcasts to the North and demolition of associated gear, in addition to a halt to the distribution of leaflets within the North by non-public residents.
Some throughout the ruling Democratic Celebration have proposed an inter-Korean joint investigation, suggesting that it may present a possibility for restoring dialogue and re-establishing interchange and belief.
By Jang Ye-ji, workers reporter
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