SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea accused the United States on Monday of violating its airspace by conducting surveillance flights. It warned that, while Pyongyang exercised restraint, such flights may be shot down.
Provocative military actions by the United States were bringing the Korean peninsula closer to a nuclear conflict, said an unnamed spokesperson of North Korea’s Ministry of National Defence in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.
The report also cited US reconnaissance planes and drones and said Washington was escalating tensions by sending a nuclear submarine near the peninsula.
“There is no guarantee that such a shocking accident as the downing of the US Air Force strategic reconnaissance plane will not happen,” the spokesperson said in waters east of Korea.
The statement cited past incidents of the North shooting down or intercepting US aircraft at the border with South Korea and off the coast. North Korea has often complained about US surveillance flights near the peninsula.
