North Korea has threatened to shoot down U.S. spy aircraft while blasting the U.S. deployment of strategic assets over the Korean Peninsula as “provocative” reconnaissance activity.

North Korea's defense ministry issued the warning in a statement issued under the name of a defense ministry spokesperson that was carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency on Monday.

The statement said that the U.S. is conducting hostile reconnaissance activities on the Korean Peninsula and over surrounding areas at an unprecedented level by intensively mobilizing its various aerial reconnaissance assets deployed in the Asia-Pacific region.

The North said that this month alone, U.S. reconnaissance aircraft such as the RC-135, the U-2S and the RQ-4B made provocative flights over the East Sea and the Yellow Sea for eight days from July 2 to 9.

The North claimed that especially in the East Sea, U.S. aircraft violated the regime’s airspace by dozens of kilometers several times.

The statement then warned that there is no guarantee that a “shocking incident” in which a U.S. Air Force strategic reconnaissance plane is shot down over the East Sea will not happen.