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Seoul’s ex-defense chief ordered North Korea drone incursion, lawmaker claims.
Kim Yong-hyun also accused of seeking pretext for martial law by pressing for strikes on DPRK trash balloon launch sites.
South Korea’s former defense minister ordered the drone incursion that dropped leaflets over the North Korean capital in October as part of President Yoon Suk-yeol’s plans to declare martial law, an opposition lawmaker claimed this week.
Another lawmaker also accused Kim Yong-hyun of pressing for military strikes against DPRK trash balloon launches days before the martial law crisis, raising concerns that the defense chief sought to provoke inter-Korean escalation to justify the measure.
In the first case, Democratic Party (DP) lawmaker Park Beom-gye, a member of the National Assembly’s defense committee, reportedly alleged on Monday that the ROK Counterintelligence Command organized the October drone incursion on Kim’s orders.
“The drone operation appears to have been part of a larger plan, potentially tied to preparations for the martial law decree,” the lawmaker told local media, citing a “credible military source.”
The lawmaker’s allegations come nearly two months after North Korea’s foreign ministry accused South Korea of sending a drone that scattered anti-regime leaflets over Pyongyang, threatening military retaliation. Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) responded ambiguously, stating that it “could not verify” the DPRK’s claims.
Then on Oct. 19, North Korean state media published additional photos purporting to show an ROK unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that crashed after violating its airspace earlier in the month. Pyongyang asserted that technical analysis identified the drone as a reconnaissance model used by South Korea’s Drone Operations Command.
At the time, experts told NK News that the photos appeared to show a Sunwoo Engineering S-BAT drone, though they noted that the DPRK could have faked the images.
But Seoul’s repeated refusal to confirm or deny that it sent the drones drew suspicions, and in the aftermath of President Yoon’s failed imposition of martial law last week, NK Pro analysis raised the possibility that in retrospect the incursion may have been an attempt to provoke North Korea into providing a justification for martial law.
In response to Park’s allegations, the JCS on Monday repeated its position that it “has nothing to confirm” regarding Kim’s orders on the drone.
Seoul’s unification ministry similarly responded that it could not confirm the veracity of Park’s allegations.
“We understand that the facts regarding this issue remain unclear,” a ministry spokesperson said, while arguing that North Korea “tends to exaggerate external threats due to internal needs.”
Yang Uk, a military analyst at the Seoul-based Asan Institute, told NK News on Tuesday that the October incursion could have been a covert South Korean response to North Korea’s own drone provocations in Dec. 2022.
He noted that this could have been intended as a warning to Pyongyang but that the government would likely refuse to acknowledge this due to military sensitivities.
“This type of operation would naturally fall under secrecy, given its strategic intent,” Yang said.
TRASH BALLOON ORIGIN STRIKES?
Separately, DP lawmaker Lee Ki-heon alleged during an interview with ROK broadcaster JTBC that on Nov. 28, five days before the martial law declaration, Kim ordered the JCS to conduct strikes on North Korea’s trash balloon launch sites.
According to Lee, Kim demanded warning shots followed by military strikes, citing a swarm of some 40 balloons heading south that day. The lawmaker also said he received a tip that Kim sought to use the balloons to provoke localized conflict with North Korea, seeking a pretext for Yoon’s martial law.
Admiral Kim Myung-soo, Seoul’s JCS chairman, reportedly refused the order, arguing it was inconsistent with defense policy and could escalate into a localized conflict. Lee claimed Kim reprimanded the admiral as a “clueless fool” and said, “Get rid of him,” though the strike was ultimately not carried out due to resistance from JCS leadership.
North Korea has frequently launched trash balloons since May in retaliation to South Korean activists’ anti-DPRK leafleting, and in recent months, Pyongyang also began sending propaganda leaflets criticizing President Yoon.
Defense chief Kim had previously pinpointed “approximately 10 sites” that North Korea uses to launch trash balloons across the border on Oct. 9, emphasizing that the military can target those locations in the future “if circumstances warrant.”
He told lawmakers that Seoul’s response would target not only Pyongyang’s launch points but also their support and command structures.
In a statement to NK News on Tuesday, the JCS denied the lawmaker’s claims that Kim ordered a strike on North Korean trash balloon launches and criticized the JCS chairman.
The expert Yang noted that such precision strikes would require careful justification, as they typically involve clear and immediate threats.
“However, labeling these balloons as a threat worthy of an origin strike is a stretch,” he said, arguing that the balloons would not meet the conditions for activating South Korea’s Kill Chain system unless they were found to contain hazardous materials.
Yang further expressed skepticism that the military, under normal circumstances, would approve such an operation, though he acknowledged that the decision-making of certain officials could be more unpredictable.
(nknews)