NK again denies drone deployment

By Nam Hyun-woo

North Korea on Sunday refuted a recent announcement from Seoul that three aerial drones which crashed near the demilitarized zone in March and April were sent by the North, describing the statement as "manipulation."

It also repeated a previous call for a joint investigation of the crashed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to be conducted.

"Though the South claims the UAVs were sent by the North more than a thousand times, our stance is clear that we are not involved in the drones," an unnamed spokesman of the North Korea's National Defense Commission (NDC) said in a statement.

"South Korean should accept without any complaint the proposal made by North Korea to carry out a joint investigation into the drone case.”

The fresh denial came three days after the South's defense ministry concluded that all three UAVs took off from North Korea and were programmed to return there.

Referring to the sinking of the Sewol ferry, the spokesman claimed that the Park Geun-hye administration used the drones as a means of deflecting mounting criticism triggered by handling of the accident.

The drones were found in Paju, Gyeonggi Province and on the border island of Baengnyeong on March 24 and 31, respectively, while the third was discovered in Samcheok, Gangwon Province on April 6.

Last month, the NDC demanded a joint investigation and accused the South of faking the drone incidents. Seoul rejected this demand.

The joint investigation team spent nearly a month restoring the GPS coordinates and concluded that "they were programmed to overfly the South's military installations."