Korea accuses America of penetrating its airspace and threatens to shoot down spy planes

North Korea threatened Monday to shoot down any US spy plane that violates its airspace.

A spokesman for North Korea’s defense ministry said the United States had “intensified espionage activities beyond wartime levels” with “provocative” flights by US spy planes for eight consecutive days this month, and a reconnaissance plane violating its airspace over the East Sea “several times”. .

“There is no guarantee that a shocking incident such as the downing of a US Air Force strategic reconnaissance plane in the East Sea of ​​Korea will not occur,” the official KCNA news agency quoted the spokesman as saying.

The spokesman referred to previous incidents when Pyongyang shot down a US plane, warning that the US would pay the price for its “feverishly organized” aerial espionage.

On Monday night, Kim Yo Jong, the sister of leader Kim Jong Un and his close advisor, indicated that a US spy plane had violated North Korea’s eastern airspace twice on the same morning.

It indicated in a statement that Pyongyang would not respond directly to US spying activities outside its exclusive economic zone, but warned of taking a “decisive step” if the US military crossed the military line of its maritime borders.

In another statement reported by the North’s official KCNA news agency, Kim Yo Jong warned that any US aircraft again violating North Korean airspace would be “fraught with great danger.”

In his statement, a spokesman for the North Korean Ministry of Defense criticized the planned deployment of US strategic nuclear assets on the Korean Peninsula, considering it “the most blatant nuclear blackmail” of North Korea, adding that it poses a serious threat to regional and global security.

“The current situation clearly proves that the situation on the Korean Peninsula approaching the threshold of a nuclear conflict Because of the provocative US military activities.

Washington announced in April its intention to send a nuclear-armed ballistic submarine in First visit to a South Korean port decades ago, without specifying a date.

North Korea conducted Several missile launches This year it has flouted sanctions, including by testing its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile, and in May it tried to put a military spy satellite into orbit.

In response, South Korean President Yun Sok-yol announced enhanced defense cooperation with Washington, and organized joint military exercises with advanced stealth aircraft and advanced US strategic assets.