North Korea said today that it had found the wreckage of a drone that corresponds to a model used by the South Korean army in a Pyongyang neighborhood, at a time marked by border tensions.
The drone was found attached to a tree in the Hyongjesan area, northeast of Pyongyang, on October 13, according to a statement from the North Korean Ministry of National Defense, published by the state news agency KCNA.
After investigation, "it was scientifically proven that the drone originated from the Republic of Korea," South Korea's official name, the government department said in the statement.
In addition, the note continued, it is a long-range reconnaissance model used by the South Korean army's Drone Operations Command and was recently on display in Seoul and at an air base during the Armed Forces Day parades on October 1.
The photos released by KCNA show a drone "very similar" to a model displayed in these parades, called S-Bat or SD-Bat and manufactured by Sunwoo Engineering, wrote the Spanish news agency EFE.
The model was selected by the South Korean Agency for Defense Development (ADD) as part of a recent program to acquire a hundred low-cost, small drones - the model is 287 centimeters wide and 173 centimeters long.
The KCNA said that, after investigation, the drone could have been used in the last five to seven days before the date it was found.
"Given the shape of the drone, the alleged flight period, the container for dropping leaflets attached to the bottom of the fuselage, etc., it is highly likely that the drone is the one that spread leaflets over central Pyongyang, although a conclusion has not yet been reached," it added.
North Korea said on October 11 that it had detected drones carrying propaganda leaflets flying over the North Korean capital and accused the neighboring country's military of being responsible for the operation.
The South Korean military denied this, albeit ambiguously, and suggested that the drones could be the responsibility of activists who regularly send balloons carrying this type of propaganda from the South to the North.
"If the drone's involvement in the recent leaflet-dropping incident is denied, it will be evidence of yet another deliberate violation of our country's airspace by military means of the Republic of Korea," said the North Korean Ministry of National Defense, which considered the "objective evidence and scientific analysis" as "clear proof" that Seoul was responsible for the operation.
The text recalls that, after the drones were detected by Pyongyang, border artillery units were ordered to open fire if new aircraft coming from the neighbouring country were sighted.
The incident occurred shortly after North Korea amended its constitution to declare the South a "hostile state", which represents a radical change in Pyongyang's diplomatic strategy, currently marked by a refusal to resume dialogue with Seoul or Washington and a strong rapprochement with Moscow.
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