The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has called for Seoul to provide a detailed explanation about recent drone incursions, claiming that the drones from South Korea clearly violated the North's airspace.
Kim Yo-jong, vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, made the remarks as South Korea's Defence Ministry denied Pyongyang's claim about the drone incursions from the South's military, raising the possibility that private entities may have been involved in the alleged drone operations, Yonhap News Agency reported.
"Fortunately, the ROK's military expressed an official stand that it was not done by itself and that it has no intention to provoke or irritate us," Kim said in a statement carried by the North's Korean Central News Agency. ROK is short for the Republic of Korea, the official name of South Korea.
"But a detailed explanation should be made about the actual case of a drone that crossed the southern border of our republic from the ROK," Kim said.
Kim also expressed her personal appreciation that South Korea's defence ministry "took a wise choice" by announcing its official stance of not provoking North Korea when it denied the North's claim.
Kim, however, said the drone incursions, whether carried out by the military or civilians, constituted a violation of the North's airspace, warning that Seoul will face terrible consequences if it opts for another provocation.
"Clear is just the fact that the drone from the ROK violated the airspace of our country," Kim said. "If the ROK opts for provocation against us again in the future, it will never be able to deal with the terrible consequences to be entailed by it."
She claimed the video data retrieved from the drones was undeniably related to a uranium mine, the now-suspended inter-Korean joint industrial complex in Kaesong in the North and North Korean border guard posts, demanding an "explanation" from Seoul.
Kim also warned, "If they brand it as a deed of a civilian organisation and then try to assert a theory that it is not an infringement upon the sovereignty, they will see a lot of UAVs by the DPRK's civilian organisations."
DPRK means the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.
Kim said the drone infiltrations cemented North Korea's view of South Korea as a "group of hooligans and scrap," marking the first time such explicit language has been used against Seoul since the Lee Jae Myung administration took office.
Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University's Institute for Far Eastern Studies in South Korea, assessed that the statement by the North Korean leader's sister appears aimed at maintaining the regime's stance of portraying Seoul as an "unchanging hostile country" and denying Seoul's peace efforts in order to ratchet up pressure.
(With inputs from IANS)
