North Korea Claims Discovery of South Korean Drone in Capital City

South Korea’s Korean Central News Agency reported on Saturday that North Korea said it had found the wreckage of a South Korean drone in the North’s capital, Pyongyang. The alleged finding occurs at a time when tensions are rising on the Korean Peninsula, with North Korea accusing South Korea of multiple drone incursions into its territory earlier in the month. The North Korean government says this discovery proves South Korean involvement in the reported South Korean drone activities over North Korea’s airspace with the intention of dropping anti-North Korea propaganda flyers.

South Korean Drone Sighting and Allegations

North Korea has displayed to the world what it says is a captured South Korean drone, a fixed-wing aircraft that appears to have been damaged and has wide V-shaped wings and winglets. The North Korean authorities state that a joint probe into military and state security agencies established that the purported South Korean drone shot on October 13 was akin to the South Korean T-500 unmanned aerial vehicle allegedly displayed in the South Korean parade.

The North Korean Defense Ministry said that the found South Korean drone could be recognized as one of the drones that dropped leaflets over Pyongyang. However, they said that additional studies were required to support this assertion. The ministry also pointed out that if the ministry denies using the South Korean drone for aerial drops of such leaflets, it would mean another territorial incursion by the South’s military.

Escalating Tensions Over Alleged South Korean Drone

South Korean military leadership simply dismissed the North’s report on the South Korean drone as “unilateral,” and “not worthy of a response.” First, the defense minister of South Korea gave an evasive response when North Korea accused South Korean drones of infiltrating the North on October 11. Sometime later, the South Korean side changed its position and said that it could not confirm or deny the North’s statement about the South Korean drone.The case of the alleged South Korean drone has aggravated the already hostile relations between the two Koreas. Pyongyang has warned that if such alleged South Korean drone flights happen again, it will retaliate with force, stating that any confirmed intrusion into its airspace is a declaration of war. This event enshrines itself into a series of psychological warfare between the two countries with North Korea’s recent dropping of trash through balloons and South Korea’s use of loudspeakers to share anti-North Korean messages across the border.