South Korea: Amid claims of a drone invasion, Seoul, reiterates ongoing attempts to defuse tensions with Pyongyang
South Korea: Despite Pyongyang’s latest accusation that Seoul is conducting drone intrusions into the nation, the South Korean government will keep working to reduce tensions and foster trust with North Korea, the unification ministry said on Monday.
Yoon Min-ho, a spokesman for the unification ministry, made the comments after President Lee Jae Myung’s directive last week to form a combined military-police investigative team to investigate the purported drone invasions.
A day after the North Korean military said that the South had infringed on the North’s sovereignty by sending drones with surveillance equipment in September and on January 4, Kim Yo-jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, demanded on Sunday that Seoul give a thorough explanation.During a press conference, the spokesman said that it is critical to keep up the investigation team’s efforts to establish the truth quickly in order to reduce tensions and foster trust between the North and the South.
According to Yonhap news agency, Yoon also reiterated Seoul’s position that it has no intention of agitating or aggravating North Korea.
The likelihood that the drones were flown by private organizations has been raised by the South Korean military’s denial of dispatching the drones on the dates the North claims or using the models discovered in the North.
North Korea said on Saturday that Seoul should be prepared to “pay a high price” for what it described as a provocation, claiming that South Korea had violated its sovereignty by using drones to invade its territory in September of last year and earlier this week.
However, Pyongyang’s assertion was denied by South Korea’s defense ministry, which said that the South Korean military did not use drones on the dates that the North claimed.
According to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), a spokesman for the Korean People’s Army’s General Staff condemned South Korea as “the most hostile” adversary and insisted that Seoul has persisted in provocative actions in defiance of its attempts to engage in dialogue with Pyongyang.Referring to South Korea by its official name, the spokesman said, “The Republic of Korea (ROK) should be prepared to pay a high price for having committed another provocation of infringing on the sovereignty of the DPRK with a drone.” The official name of the North is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK for short.