DPRK accuses US of intruding on Exclusive Economic Zone

SEOUL - A senior official of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) warned on Monday and Tuesday against the US intrusion into the airspace over the country's Exclusive Economic Zone, the DPRK's state news agency reported.

Kim Yo-jong, vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, accused the United States of sending a strategic reconnaissance plane that intruded into the airspace over the "economic water zone" of the DPRK side in the eastern waters off the Korean Peninsula eight times on Monday and of conducting espionage, according to two statements by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The DPRK will take countermeasures if the United States makes more such intrusions, said Kim in the statements.

The warnings came on the heels of a Monday press statement by the Ministry of National Defense of the DPRK in which a ministry spokesman lashed out at the United States due to its alleged military espionage which violates the DPRK's sovereignty.

The United States has recently conducted hostile espionage activities on the Korean Peninsula and its vicinity at an unprecedented level by intensively mobilizing various air reconnaissance means deployed in the Asia-Pacific region, said the statement.

It urged the United States to stop such provocative moves immediately.