South Korea
has found what appears to be a North Korean drone equipped with a camera on a
mountain near its border with the isolated nation, the South's military said
on
Friday, suggesting the device was on a spying mission.
Its
appearance a day after Pyongyang tested a new type of anti-ship missile on
Thursday, could spark questions about the state of South Korea's air defenses
at a time when Seoul is trying to rein in the North's nuclear and missile
programs.
In size and
shape, the device looked like a North Korean drone found in 2014 on an island
near the border, South Korea's Office of Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a
statement, adding that authorities plan to conduct a close analysis.
"The
drone found this time looks sloppy but slightly more slender than previous
ones," a South Korean military official told Reuters on condition of
anonymity, because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The device
would be the latest of several North Korean drones to have flown into the
South, with which Pyongyang is technically at war after the Korean war ended in
a truce, rather than a peace treaty, in 1953.
In 2014,
South Korea said three unmanned drones from North Korea were found in border
towns.
A joint
investigation by South Korean and U.S. militaries has concluded the craft were
on reconnaissance missions for the North, which has denied sending spy drones,
however, dismissing the findings as a fabrication.
Last year,
South Korea fired warning shots at a suspected North Korean drone, forcing it
to turn back.
North Korea
owns around 300 unmanned aerial vehicles of different types including
reconnaissance, target and combat drones, the United Nations said in a report
last year.
The North
Korean drones recovered in South Korea were probably procured through front
companies in China, with parts manufactured in China, the Czech Republic, Japan
and the United States, it added.
Reuters*
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