North Korea’s air force on Friday accused a United States reconnaissance plane of intruding into its territorial waters to spy on strategic targets.
Its Air Force Command said that a US RC-135 plane being refuelled in the air had spied on strategic targets for hours after flying over its waters off the north-east coast.
”The ceaseless illegal intrusions of their strategic reconnaissance planes on spy missions have created an imminent danger of military clash in the sky above those waters,” it warned in a statement published by the official Korean Central News Agency.
It was North Korea’s second warning in a week against alleged US spy plane intrusions.
On Sunday, the air force threatened to ”punish” US spy flights, recalling the fate of a US Navy plane it shot down in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) in 1969.
Another US-North Korean incident occurred when North Korea fired missiles at an SR-71 spy plane in August 1981. The jet was undamaged.
The warning comes amid jitters over the Stalinist country’s preparations for a long-range missile test.
Officials here and in Washington confirmed earlier this week that North Korea appeared to be preparing to launch an inter-continental ballistic missile capable of reaching the mainland US.
North Korea is believed to be developing the missile for a range of up to 10 000km.
It shocked the world in August 1998 by firing a long-range Taepodong-1 missile, with a range of up to 2 000km, over Japan into the Pacific Ocean, claiming it was a satellite launch. — AFP
