hankyoreh

Soldiers in Korea’s Army V Corps operate a Vulcan anti-drone cannon during drills for responding to and destroying small unmanned aerial vehicles on Dec. 29. (courtesy of Joint Chiefs)

One of the North Korean drones that crossed into Seoul’s airspace on Dec. 26 penetrated a no-fly zone established to guard the presidential office in Yongsan, Seoul, contrary to what the military originally stated.

This announcement reveals a gap in the defense of the heart of Seoul, where the presidential office is located.

In response to the tardiness with which the military owned up to its failure to detect the drone, the opposition parties urged President Yoon Suk-yeol to apologize and reprimand the officials responsible.

An official from the Joint Chiefs of Staff announced on Thursday that according to an investigation by their Combat Readiness Inspection Office, the flight path of a small drone that entered Seoul airspace “seems to have passed part of the northern end of the no-fly zone.”

The no-fly zone in question, known as P-73, is an area with a radius of 3.7 kilometers to protect the president’s office from the threat of air terrorism and spans parts of Yongsan, Seocho, Dongjak and Jung districts in Seoul.

The military belatedly revealed that the North Korean drone entered the border between Yongsan and Jongno districts.

This completely contradicts the report that the Ministry of National Defense and the Joint Chiefs gave on Dec. 29. When, at the time, the opposition party claimed there was a possibility that the drone entered the no-fly zone, Lee Sung-jun, the Joint Chiefs’ spokesperson, expressed “strong regret” over what he characterized as “ungrounded claims.” Ministry of Defense spokesperson Jeon Ha-kyu also refuted those claims by saying that they “only benefited the enemy.”

The South Korean military has since stuck to its claim that the North Korean drone only flew in the “northern Seoul” area.

The Ministry of National Defense and the Joint Chiefs stated that their sudden about-face was based on the fact that “front-line operators did not think it was a drone, but during the combat readiness inspection we judged it to be a North Korean drone.”

Military authorities stressed repeatedly during the briefing that “there was no breach to the safety of the presidential office.”

“Judging from the drone’s altitude, the distance from the presidential office, and the ability of the drone, obtaining pictures of the presidential office in Yongsan would be impossible,” commented one military official. However, the official also stated that they “couldn’t confirm” whether the drone, which returned north of the DMZ, was equipped with a camera.

The National Intelligence Service also responded to concerns that the presidential office was filmed at the National Assembly Intelligence Committee. Youn Kun-young, the Democratic lawmaker serving as executive secretary of the committee, related that the agency admitted “there was a possibility” that the drone shot footage of the Yongsan office.

Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party, took to Facebook, writing, “If you are a military commander, you should apologize to the public for the unprecedented security disaster and reprimand the incompetence and deceit of the person in charge.”

The military has recently had a poor track record of responding to North Korea’s shows of force and has repeatedly covered up and played down several mishaps. For instance, on Dec. 27, the military mistook a flock of birds for an unmanned aerial vehicle and launched a fighter jet.

On Oct. 4 of last year, authorities notified the public of the fact that a surface-to-surface Hyunmoo-2C ballistic missile backfired after being launched from a base in Gangneung in response to North Korea’s missile launches 8 hours after the fact.

Even though the military failed to track the trajectory of one of the two Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) fired on the same day, they still went ahead with a press release that stated that “South Korea-US surface-to-surface missile, ATACMS accurately hit the virtual targets and demonstrated its ability to respond to further military provocations.”

By Kwon Hyuk-chul, staff reporter; Shin Hyeong-cheol, staff reporter; Bae Ji-hyun, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]