SEOUL: The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned Sunday that South Korea will face a "horrible disaster" if its drones are flown again over the North's capital.
Kim Yo-jong remarked in a statement carried by the North's Korean Central News Agency, just a day after the reclusive regime floated trash balloons toward South Korea, claiming the South had sent unmanned drones over Pyongyang three times this month, reported Yonhap news agency.
"We have no concern about who is the main force provoking the recent drone incident and its performers, " she said. "We will take a strong corresponding retaliatory action in disregard of ingredient in case drones carrying anti-DPRK political motivation rubbish from the ROK across the border infiltrate into the territorial sky of the DPRK."
The ROK and DPRK are the acronyms for the official names of the South and the North, respectively.
On Friday, North Korea's foreign ministry claimed that South Korean drones carrying leaflets were detected in the night skies over Pyongyang on October 3, as well as Wednesday and Thursday of this week, and threatened to respond with force if such flights occur again.
Defence Minister Kim Yong-hyun initially denied that the military had sent any drones across the border, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff later said it could not confirm whether the North's claims were true.
Kim took issue with the South Korean military's stance that it "cannot confirm" the North's claims over the drones, saying the military's response essentially admits that it is accountable.
"Such attitude of neither denying nor admitting the case proves that the military admitted by itself that it is the chief criminal or accomplice of the current incident as a revelation of its mental state that it can admit the case, unable to deny it, " she said.
She warned that South Korea should be prepared to pay the price for its "repeated provocations", warning the "attack time" for destroying South Korea can happen at any time.
"That time is not set by us, " Kim said. "The moment that a drone of the ROK is discovered in the sky over our capital city once again will certainly lead to a horrible disaster."
The North's state-run newspaper featured angry reactions from its citizens over the alleged flight of the drones on its front page Sunday, in an apparent effort to incite hostility toward the South.
The Rodong Sinmun reported that "millions of our people are boiling with unstoppable rage" and "roaring" with the desire for "merciless revenge".
The newspaper quoted some residents as calling the South "puppet trash", "scum" and "rats", and wanting to "quickly turn the enemy's stronghold into a sea of fire".
The newspaper also carried Kim's latest statement about the drones on the front page, a rare move considering that the North typically doesn't disclose its statements directed at the South or the US to its own people.
The use of the alleged drone flights is seen as a propaganda manoeuvre by the reclusive regime to fuel animosity toward the South as a way to justify leader Kim's drive to drop the unification policy and define the two Koreas as states that are hostile to each other.