North Korea’s leader’s sister urges Seoul to explain drone incidents
North Korea’s Kim Yo-jong accused South Korea of drone violations, warning of severe consequences and demanding a full explanation, as Seoul launched an investigation into the incidents.
- Tech
- Anadolu Agency
- Published Date: 10:41 | 11 January 2026
The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un urged Seoul to give a thorough account of recent drone activity, asserting that recent UAV activity originating from South Korea unmistakably breached North Korean airspace.
Kim Yo-jong, who serves as a vice department director on the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, made the comments after South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back rejected Pyongyang's accusation that the South's military was responsible for two separate drone incidents.
"Fortunately, the ROK's (South Korea) military expressed an official stand that it was not done by itself and that it has no intention to provoke or irritate us," Kim said in a statement released by the Korean Central News Agency.
"But a detailed explanation should be made about the actual case of a drone that crossed the southern border of our republic from the ROK," said Kim.
She voiced personal approval of South Korea's defense ministry, stating that it "took a wise choice" by formally declaring it had no intention of provoking North Korea when denying the allegations.
"Clear is just the fact that the drone from the ROK violated the airspace of our country," she said. "If the ROK opts for provocation against us again in the future, it will never be able to deal with the terrible consequences to be entailed by it."
She also alleged that footage recovered from the drones clearly pertained to a uranium mine, the currently suspended inter-Korean joint industrial complex in Kaesong, and North Korean border guard facilities, while demanding an "explanation" from Seoul.
"If they brand it as a deed of a civilian organization and then try to assert a theory that it is not an infringement upon the sovereignty, they will see a lot of UAVs by the DPRK's (North Korea's) civilian organizations," Kim warned.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung ordered an investigation Saturday into the drone incursion into North Korea, according to Seoul-based Yonhap News Agency.