hankyoreh

one in Baeknyeong Island (left) and the other in Paju

By Lee Se-young, staff reporter and Park Byong-su, senior staff writer

In reference to the drones that recently crashed on Baekryeong Island and Paju, South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin said on Apr. 4 that the military is urgently preparing measures to counter the possibility that North Korea - which is believed to have launched the drones - could equip drones with explosives.

“At the moment, it appears that the drones are being used in a simple surveillance role. Later on, though, if the North improves its technology, we believe it’s entirely possibly that these could be turned into bombs,” said the Minister during a question-and-answer session in the National Assembly dealing with foreign affairs, unification, and security.

“The photography does not present a serious security threat at the moment since the resolution is similar to photography provided by Google, but we will move swiftly to take countermeasures,” Kim said. He explained that North Korea had started developing drones in the 1990s and acknowledged that the South Korean military had been remiss in its efforts to detect these small drones.

In regard to this, the South Korean military issued a statement announcing that it had succeeded in creating its own new low-altitude radar for detecting small drones and that this would be deployed in the field beginning in 2015.

“The existing radar used by our military is limited in the extent to which it can detect small drones,” said Kim Min-seok, spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense. “In the future, we will have radar that is capable of detecting them.”

When asked about the level of sophistication of North Korea’s nuclear weapons, Kim noted that seven years had passed since the North’s first nuclear test and guessed that it had made significant headway in its miniaturization technology.

“If North Korea carries out a fourth nuclear test, we will make an effort to take tough, punitive measures with the help of the UN Security Council and the international community,” said Prime Minister Chung Hong-won.

Voicing suspicions that the South Korean military tried to cover up the drone incident, opposition party lawmakers called for an investigation into the facts of the case and punishment for those responsible.

Addressing Prime Minister Chung during the National Assembly hearing on Friday, Jin Seong-joon, a lawmaker with the New Politics Alliance for Democracy, said, “There was the sinking of the Cheonan warship, the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, the defecting North Korea soldier who was not noticed until he knocked on the barracks door, and now the drones. The army, the navy, and the air force have all been found wanting during the Saenuri Party’s control of the government. Do you admit that there are weaknesses in national security?”

While Chung acknowledged that the military had failed to take adequate precautions and promised that they would do so soon, Jin did not back down, insisting that the Defense Minister be held responsible and that the Prime Minister take responsibility for looking into how the relevant authorities had carried out their investigation and announcement of the drone case.

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