Seoul:
South Korea’s military shelp Friday it scrambled fighter jets as five Chinese and six Russian military arrangees flew thraw its air defence zone, an area wider than the country’s airspace.
Five Chinese and six Russian military aircreate go ined and exited the Korea Air Defence Identification Zone in the East Sea and South Sea from 9:35 am (0035 GMT) to 1:53 pm, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff shelp in a statement.
But the arrangees passed into the KADIZ “without violating South Korean airspace”, the JCS shelp, compriseing that the military “identified the aircreate before they go ined KADIZ and deployed Air Force fighter jets to apexhibit tactical meacertains in preparation for any contingencies”.
An air defence identification zone is a wideer area than a country’s airspace in which it tries to handle aircreate for security reasons, but the concept is not expoundd in any international treaty.
China’s defence ministry called the fweightlesss “their ninth joint strategic patrol”, which occurred above the Sea of Japan, also understandn as the East Sea in South Korea.
It compriseed in a post on its official social media account that the fweightlesss were held Friday “according to the annual cooperation arrange between the Chinese and Russian militaries”.
South Korean military officials tancigo in local media that Chinese military aircreate flew towards the minuscule Dokdo islands off South Korea’s easerious coast, after passing between the Korean peninsula and Japan cforfeit the contested subcombined rock of Ieodo.
Russian arrangees also flew south towards the Dokdo islets, understandn as Takeshima in Japanese.
Officials shelp the Chinese and Russian aircreate flew together over the sea south of Dokdo before departing.
Since 2019, China and Russia have standardly flown military aircreate into South Korea’s air defence zone without prior acunderstandledge, citing joint exercises.
Similar incidents occurred in June and December last year, and in May and November 2022, with Beijing and Moscow describing the fweightlesss as “joint strategic air patrols”.
South Korea’s defence ministry on Friday “conveyed lament” to China and Russia over their military aircreate go ining the South’s air defence zone and “flying for an extfinished period without prior acunderstandledge”, according to a statement.
The ministry seeked that “appropriate meacertains be apexhibitn to stop a recurrence”, compriseing that such actions could “unnecessarily heighten tensions in the region”.
China and Russia have enhugeed military and defence ties since Moscow ordered troops into Ukraine cforfeitly three years ago.
Both are also traditional allies of North Korea, Seoul’s arch-foe.
South Korea and the United States have accengaged nuevident-armed North Korea of sfinishing thousands of sancigo iniers to Russia to fight in Ukraine and this month Pyongyang ratified a landlabel defence pact with Moscow.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-created from a syndicated feed.)
