AP
Seoul, December 27
South Korea’s president on Tuesday called for stronger air defences and high-tech stealth drones while the military apologised for failing to shoot down North Korean drones that crossed the border for the first time in five years.
South Korea’s military scrambled warplanes and attack helicopters on Monday, but they failed to bring down any of the North Korean drones that flew back home or disappeared from South Korean radars. It raised serious questions about South Korea’s air defence network at a time when tensions remain high over North Korea’s torrid run of missile tests this year.
“We have a plan to create a military drone unit tasked with monitoring key military facilities in North Korea. But we’ll advance the establishment of the drone unit as soon as possible because of Monday’s incident,” President Yoon Suk Yeol said during a regular Cabinet Council meeting.
“We’ll also introduce state-of-the art stealth drones and bolster our surveillance capability,” he added.
He said South Korea’s military needs more intensive readiness and exercises to cope with threats posed by North Korean drones.
Lieutenant General Kang Shin Chul, chief director of operation at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a televised statement that the military feels sorry because of its failure to shoot down the North Korean drones and for causing big public concerns.
Kang acknowledged South Korea lacks capacities to detect and strike small surveillance drones with a wingspan of less than three metre (9.8 feet) though it has assets to spot and bring down bigger combat drones. Kang said South Korea will establish drone units with various capacities and aggressively deploy military assets to shoot down enemy drones.
A front-line county office in South Korea on Tuesday sent emergency text messages notifying residents of a new batch of North Korean drones. But the military later said it was a flock of birds.
Earlier on Tuesday, North Korea’s state media said Kim called for stronger effort to overcome hardships and challenges facing his country at the start of a key ruling Workers’ Party meeting the previous day.
In Seoul, the South Korean president used the drone incident to hit at his liberal predecessor’s engagement policy with North Korea.
“I think our people must have seen well how dangerous a policy relying on the North’s good faiths and (peace) agreements would be,” he said.
Moon’s liberal opposition Democratic Party accused Yoon of shifting his government’s “security disaster” to someone else.
