News - Middle East: South Korea’s military is considering purchasing an Israeli drone detection system as part of efforts to bolster capabilities to detect small North Korean drones, a media report says.

A defense source told the South Korean Yonhap News Agency on Sunday that the ‘Sky Spotter’ can track drones, kites and other threats that legacy radar systems may not be able to detect.

According to Yonhap, the system uses a network of sensitive optical sensors which can detect small targets or aircraft using radar countermeasures. It also uses artificial intelligence (AI) to separate, classify and identify objects in order to avoid false alarms.

The Korean military reportedly plans to decide whether to formally order the purchase of the system after a review of its effectiveness in the coming weeks.

South Korean defense authorities have come under fierce criticism for failure to counter penetration of five North Korean drones into South Korea’s airspace late last month. On Thursday, South Korea's military said a North Korean drone had entered the no-fly zone over the presidential office in Seoul during a rare incursion in December. They said the drone was among the five unmanned aerial vehicles that Seoul claimed the North had sent across the Military Demarcation Line separating the two Koreas on December 26. The purported incursion at the time prompted the South's military to scramble a number of jets and attack helicopters and fire warning shots to repel the aerial intruders.

It also triggered criticism in South Korea of the country's air defenses and prompted President Yoon Suk-yeol to chide the military, particularly its failure to shoot or bring down the drones while they flew over the South for hours.

President Yoon has now threatened to pull out of a 2018 non-hostility pact signed with Pyongyang over purported drone incursions if North Korea was to violate the South's airspace again.

The reported interest in the Israeli system also comes just weeks after a new free-trade agreement between Seoul and Tel Aviv regime came into force. Both sides are close allies of the United States, a source of hostilities and tensions on the troubled Korean Peninsula.