South Korea’s main opposition party alleged on Tuesday that impeached President Yoon Suk-yeol’s office bypassed the military chain of command to order a covert drone operation targeting North Korea in October, prompting the presidential office to immediately deny the claims as “blatant falsehoods.”

The back and forth came as accusations that the Yoon administration deliberately attempted to provoke North Korea and planned a false-flag operation have attracted attention in recent weeks, raising questions about Seoul’s trustworthiness as a U.S. ally.

“We have received multiple reports that the National Security Office [NSO] directly ordered the Drone Operations Command to conduct the