North Korea Accuses U.S. Spy Plane of Territorial Intrusion

SEOUL—North Korea said it scrambled jet fighters to intercept an American military spy plane that Pyongyang alleged had intruded on its airspace, something the U.S. and South Korea denied.

In a pair of statements this week, Kim Yo Jong, the younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, warned that future reconnaissance flights, which she characterized as illegal, would be met with “resolute actions.”

Washington and Seoul didn’t specify the exact location of the flight in question. But officials said it had been conducted in accordance with international law, which allows foreign planes to fly into any country’s exclusive economic zone, or EEZ. Such areas fall outside a country’s territorial boundaries.

Kim Yo Jong claimed that a U.S. Air Force plane had intruded on North Korea’s EEZ eight times on Monday. Under North Korean law, a foreign plane is barred from entering its EEZ. She described the Monday activity as an “aerial espionage act.”

Seoul’s military said Washington’s reconnaissance flights are considered ordinary activities. The frequency of such U.S. flights has increased in the past year under the administration of Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korea’s conservative president who has given priority to strengthening the country’s alliance with the U.S. and has taken a tougher line with the Kim regime.

North Korea’s decision to call out the flights could signal an intention to establish a pretense to justify a military provocation of its own, some security experts and South Korea’s military said.

Pyongyang in recent years has engaged in a historic spree of weapons tests that violate several United Nations Security Council resolutions. But the Kim regime often shifts blame from itself and points the finger at Washington and Seoul for rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

U.S. and South Korean officials denied Kim Yo Jong’s assertion of an illegal flight. “Those accusations are just accusations,” a Pentagon spokeswoman said in response to Kim’s remarks. A U.S. State Department spokesman urged North Korea to refrain from escalatory actions and called on Pyongyang to engage in dialogue.

“North Korea seems to be building up pretext for provocation,” a spokesman for South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Tuesday. He added North Korea may have internal motivations for asserting an intrusion by the U.S. reconnaissance plane.

Pyongyang is ramping up for a major holiday it calls “Victory Day” on July 27. It marks the day an armistice was signed by the United Nations, North Korea and China, which brought an end to armed conflict in the 1950-1953 Korean War.

North Korea may have ulterior motives in deploying Kim Yo Jong to express outrage and make threats over the regime’s self-determined territorial violation, security experts said.

“Threatening to shoot down a U.S. plane indicates North Korea is looking to justify irregular provocations beyond just short-range missiles,” said Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

North Korea will likely hold a military parade to celebrate its “Victory Day” that could feature major military hardware. In Pyongyang’s historical account, the Kim regime claims it defeated a U.S. invasion of its territory. North Korea designates June 25 to July 27, the days between the start and end of the Korean War, as a month of anti-U.S. rallies.

South Korea’s Yoon, who took office last year, arrived in Lithuania on Monday to attend the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit. Ahead of his departure, Yoon said he would stress the importance of deterring North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program at the summit, according to a recent written interview with the Associated Press. On the agenda at the NATO summit is increased cooperation in maritime and cybersecurity as the leaders of Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Japan attend for the second successive year.

Regardless of coming holidays or global summits, North Korea conducts weapons tests on its own timeline, and the justifications it sets forward exist to signal to the North Korean people that they are conducting military activities as a defensive measure, said Cha Du-hyeogn, a research fellow at Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.

“North Korea is signaling it has no intention to engage with the U.S. until President Biden’s term ends,” Cha said.

Write to Dasl Yoon at [email protected]