North Korea said on Saturday that South Korea had flown another drone into its airspace on 4 January, infringing on its sovereignty, according to state media KCNA.
The announcement, which comes ahead of a key ruling party congress at which North Korea is expected to outline policies for the next five years, sets the stage for further entrenching leader Kim Jong Un’s rhetoric that South Korea is a foreign and hostile state, an analyst said.
According to KCNA, the drone originated from an island in the South Korean city of Incheon and flew about eight kilometres (five miles) before being shot down inside North Korean airspace. The report cited a spokesperson for the North Korean military.
KCNA said the drone was equipped with surveillance cameras used to record what it described as “major” facilities in North Korea. Images published by the agency showed fragments of the drone, electronic components and aerial photographs of buildings that it said were taken by the aircraft.
The state media outlet said the incident followed a similar incursion in September, when another South Korean drone was shot down over Kaesong.
“Even after a change of regime, South Korea has continued to commit such acts of provocation by drones near the border,” KCNA said, describing the South as its “most hostile enemy”.
Since South Korean President Lee Jae Myung took office in June, North Korea has rejected conciliatory gestures from his administration. Lee had pledged to re-engage Pyongyang in a bid to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
South Korea’s military said on Saturday that it does not operate the drone model shown by North Korean media and did not fly drones on the date claimed by Pyongyang. It added that it would conduct a thorough investigation into the possibility that a civilian may have operated the drone.
“We have no intention of provoking North Korea, and we will continue to take practical measures and efforts to ease tensions and build trust,” the South Korean military said in a statement.
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Analysts have questioned the timing and credibility of the allegation. North Korea expert Hong Min of the Korea Institute for National Unification said the drone and electronic parts displayed appeared to be low-cost consumer products, while the video footage released showed areas with little intelligence or military value.
“The South Korean military already possesses high-value assets capable of closely monitoring areas near the armistice line,” Hong said, making it unlikely that the drone belonged to the military.
He added that the timing of North Korea’s disclosure was notable, coming just ahead of the expected 9th Party Congress. Kim Jong Un’s policy of defining relations between the two Koreas as those of hostile states, first introduced in 2024, is expected to be further reinforced at the congress and may be written into the country’s constitution this year.
North Korea had previously accused South Korea of sending a drone over Pyongyang in October 2024.
South Korea’s former president, Yoon Suk Yeol, was accused by a special prosecutor late last year of ordering the drone operation as a pretext to justify declaring emergency martial law. Yoon has denied the allegation, with his legal team arguing that actions taken in the course of presidential duties cannot be criminalised retrospectively.
