S. Korea Says Discovered Drones Sent by DPRK
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - South Korea's Defense Ministry said Thursday that three drones discovered around the inter-Korean border were sent by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).
Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told a press briefing that the US-South Korea joint investigation team conducted a scientific probe into three DPRK drones after announcing an interim probe result on April 11.
Kim said three drones were pre-arranged to take off from and return to the DPRK based on investigation into the built-in CPU chips. The unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) flew in accordance with pre-arranged coordinates via the global positioning system (GPS).
Kim called flight paths collected from the pre-arranged coordinates as a "smoking gun" to prove the drones came from the DPRK, saying the pilotless airplanes flew over major South Korean military installations, Xinhua reported.
The first DPRK drone was found on March in Paju, the northwestern South Korean city close to the land border. The second one was discovered in the Baengnyeong Island just south of the disputed western sea boundary on March 31 when the two Koreas exchanged artillery fires.
One more UAV, flown by the DPRK possibly last year, was spotted on April 6 in Samcheok, around 290 km east of Seoul and some 130 km south of the military demarcation line between the two Koreas.
The spokesman said that this DPRK act is a clear military provocation and a violation of armistice agreement that banned mutual aggression, noting the military will take a stern response to such provocation and warned against the DPRK through the UN command.
The South Korean military will view the small DPRK drones as a new threat and push to strengthen its air defense capability, Kim said, noting it will build up a comprehensive defense system that can detect and strike such small drones.