A North Korean fighter jet briefly crossed the western sea border with South Korea yesterday, but retreated without incident when two South Korean jets raced to the area, the South Korean Defense Ministry said.
The provocation, which also prompted the South to put an anti-aircraft missile unit into battle position, came only days after North Korea threatened to abandon the armistice keeping peace along the countries' tense border.
The incursion, the first by a North Korean military jet since 1983, increased jitters on the Korean Peninsula, where the North is locked in a dispute over its suspected nuclear weapons development.
"Our military sternly protests the North Korean provocation and demands that the North take actions to prevent a recurrence of similar incidents," a ministry spokesman, Brigadier General Hwang Young-soo, said in a statement.
Hwang warned that the North Korean incursion "could result in very serious consequences in the current situation on the Korean Peninsula."
Tension has built since October, when US officials said North Korea had admitted having a covert nuclear program. Washington and its allies suspended fuel shipments, and the North retaliated by expelling UN monitors, restarting frozen nuclear facilities and withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
On Tuesday, North Korea threatened to abandon the armistice that ended the 1950 to 1953 Korean War if the US went ahead with sanctions or other actions against the communist country.
The North Korean MiG-19 jet fighter crossed the borderline at 10:03am yesterday and flew 13km into Southern airspace before heading back into communist territory two minutes later.
A South Korea anti-aircraft missile unit based near Incheon, a seaport west of Seoul, went into battle position. At the same time, two South Korean F-5E jets flew to the scene to try to intercept the intruder, the ministry said. Later, four more South Korean F-5E jets were deployed to the area.
The first South Korean jets were 30km, or a two-minute flight, from the enemy jet when it began retreating, said air force Colonel Oh Sung-dae.
The North does not recognize the so-called Northern Limit Line maritime border that was drawn up by the US-led UN Command at the end of the Korean War. North Korea has often provoked armed clashes along the zone in apparent attempts to raise tensions and bring South Korea and its US ally to the negotiating table.
Later in the day, North Korea's official state news agency, KCNA, described the situation on the divided Korean Peninsula and in northeast Asia as "so alarming that a nuclear war may break out any moment."
In June last year, warships of the two Koreas clashed near the western sea border. One South Korean warship sank, killing six sailors and wounding 18 others. North Korea admitted that it also suffered casualties but did not say how many.
In 1999, a series of North Korean incursions across the western sea border touched off the first naval clash between the sides since the war.
International consideration of North Korea's nuclear plans moved ahead yesterday, with China hinting the issue might be resolved with regional talks -- a statement that appeared to depart slightly from its weeks of insistence that the issue was a matter for only Pyongyang and Washington.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS