Seoul. South Korea on Monday demanded the immediate withdrawal of North Korean soldiers reportedly deployed to Russia and summoned the Russian ambassador to express its rejection of increasingly close military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow.
South Korea’s spy agency said Friday it had confirmed that North Korea sent 1,500 special operations troops to Russia this month to support Moscow in its war against Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy previously said his government had intelligence that 10,000 North Korean soldiers were preparing to join the invading Russian forces.
During a meeting with Russian Ambassador Georgy Zinoviev, South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Hong Kyun “condemned in the strongest terms” the deployment of North Korean troops, since, he assured, it represents “a serious threat to security.” of South Korea and the international community, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Kim said that, in collaboration with the international community, South Korea will mobilize all available means to confront an action that puts its national security interests at risk, according to the statement. In statements released by the Russian embassy, Zinoviev assured that cooperation between Russia and North Korea is not directed against the security interests of South Korea.
In a telephone conversation with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said Monday that Seoul will not stand idly by the “reckless” military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow. Yoon said his country will soon send a delegation to NATO to exchange information on cooperation between Russia and North Korea, according to South Korea’s presidential office. Rutte wrote on social network X that the possibility of North Korea fighting side by side with Russia would represent a “significant escalation.”
Neither the United States nor NATO have confirmed that North Korean troops have been sent to Russia. But reports of its presence have already sparked concerns in South Korea that Russia could provide North Korea with advanced technologies capable of significantly improving Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs in exchange for the deployment of forces.
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