The US has boosted aerial espionage against North Korea in recent months amid escalating tensions in the Korean peninsula, a report says. Unnamed military sources told the official KCNA news agency that spy planes had violated the country's air space for at least 180 times just in a single month. The sources claimed the planes belonged to the US and South Korean armies.
"Their intentions of invading the DPRK (North Korea) have reached an extremely reckless phase," the report said.
The report comes as North Korea is gearing up to transport a satellite into orbit with a rocket. The move has alarmed the international community where it is believed that Pyongyang is preparing to test-fire a long-range missile, believed capable of reaching US territory.
The US Pacific Command has reacted to the situation by saying the military was "fully prepared" to shoot down any North Korean ballistic missile. "We will be fully prepared to respond as the president [Obama] directs," Adm. Timothy Keating said in an interview with ABC News on Thursday.
Tensions between the two Koreas have risen to the highest level in a decade after the conservative South Korean government of President Lee Myung-bak announced joint exercises with the US.
South Korean Defense Minister Lee Sang-Hee earlier warned that a limited naval clash may break out around the two countries' disputed border in the Yellow Sea -- where bloody clashes occurred in 1999 and 2002. North Korea, however, accuses President Lee of using "nonexistent nuclear and missile threats" from Pyongyang as a pretext for an invasion.