N Korea warns of possible air clash over US spy flights

With the US having rejected direct talks with North Korea over a potential missile launch...

With the US having rejected direct talks with North Korea over a potential missile launch, the Asian country on Thursday warned of the danger of an aerial military clash in response to alleged US spy planes, amid tensions over the communist nation’s possible missile launch.

‘‘Military provocations by US warmongers against (North Korea) are reaching their extreme,’’ the North Korean Central News Agency said in a report. ‘‘The series of illegal infiltrations and spying by reconnaissance planes of US aggression forces is creating a danger of military clash in the skies’’ over the area, it said.

The complaint was the latest in a series of North Korean warnings about the American flights, some of which allegedly have occurred off the country’s northeast coast near the North’s missile test facility.

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On Thursday, Japan dispatched ships and planes to monitor North Korea amid regional jitters about a possible long-range missile launch, but played down the communist nation’s capacity to possibly load a nuclear warhead atop its rockets.

‘‘At this point, we have encountered information that indicates North Korea has the technology,’’ said Senior Vice-Foreign Minister Yasuhisa Shiozaki in Tokyo. Also speaking at a parliamentary committee meeting on terrorism, Defense Agency chief Fukushiro Nukaga confirmed that his agency had deployed naval ships and patrol planes to monitor developments in North Korea.

For Kolkata, the IMD has forecast mostly cloudy skies with light to moderate rain or thundershowers on most days through Panchami.

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