Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un, issued a warning against the United States after Pyongyang said that it scrambled warplanes to ward off an American spy plane in its exclusive economic zone.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Korean Central News Agency carried a statement which said that the North Korean air force deployed a sortie of planes, which forced the US aircraft to “retreat”.
Kim said, “The intrusion into the DPRK’s 200-nautical mile economic water zone by the reconnaissance asset of the hostile country … is clearly a grave encroachment upon the sovereignty and security of the DPRK.”
As per North Korea’s Defence Ministry, the US apparently flew a strategic reconnaissance plane into its “inviolable airspace” several times. The nuclear-powered nation even warned that the US aircraft might be shot down.
Earlier, the Pentagon refuted Pyongyang’s accusations of airspace violations and said the US military had adhered to international law. Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters: “So those accusations are just accusations.”
On being asked about the North Korean accusations, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller at a regular news briefing on Monday urged North Korea “to refrain from escalatory actions” and reiterated a call for it “to engage in serious and sustained diplomacy”.
In a statement released on Monday night, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Pyongyang was escalating tensions by using threats over what it said was “normal flight activity” by the South Korea-US alliance.
But Kim criticised South as she said, “As regards the provocation by the US forces, the military of the ‘ROK’ again impudently took the lead in denying the encroachment on the DPRK’s sovereignty, while shamelessly asserting that it was a ‘normal flight’.”
