The U.S. State Department has approved the sale of state-of-the-art Global Hawk reconnaissance aircraft worth US$950 million to South Korea, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

The aircraft is capable of identifying an object as small as 30 cm in diameter from an altitude of 20 km. Seoul signed a contract for the purchase of four of the aircraft with manufacturer Northrop Grumman in 2014, but Washington delayed approval due to concerns over cybersecurity.

"This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by meeting the legitimate security and defense needs of one of the closest allies" in Asia Pacific, the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency said on its website.

The sale still needs final approval from Congress.

A military spokesman here said, "A no-fly zone set up over the military demarcation line as a result of an inter-Korean military pact in 2018 won't affect the Global Hawk because it's capable of carrying out surveillance at a far greater distance than smaller reconnaissance planes."

