The US and South Korea want North Korea to withdraw troops from Russia

Jakarta –

North Korea (North Korea) sent 10 thousand Pyongyang soldiers to the battlefield to help Russia against the team Ukraine. In response to this, the defense chiefs of the United States (US) and South Korea (South Korea) asked North Korea to withdraw its troops from Russia.

Reported AFPThursday (31/10/2024), Russia and North Korea have deepened their political and military alliance during the ongoing war. However, sending Pyongyang’s troops into battle against Kyiv’s forces would cause a major escalation, raising widespread international concern.

“I want them to withdraw their troops from Russia,” said US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon. Also present was South Korean Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, next to him.

Austin said the United States would continue to work with allies and partners to prevent Russia from using such troops in combat.

Meanwhile, Kim said he believed the deployment of North Korean troops “could bring more security threats to the Korean Peninsula.”

This is because it is “most likely” that Pyongyang will request technology transfers from Russia to help its military programs “including tactical nuclear weapons, intercontinental ballistic missiles and reconnaissance satellites – in return for the to deploy his troops,” he said.

But he did not announce any changes to Seoul’s long-standing policy to prevent it from selling weapons to active conflict zones including Ukraine. As is known, the US and Ukraine previously asked South Korea to consider this policy.

“At the moment, nothing is certain,” Kim said when asked if there were any plans for South Korea to arm Ukraine indirectly.

The Pentagon said earlier in the day that a “small number” of North Korean troops had been deployed in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces have been conducting a ground offensive since August .

The White House said Pyongyang’s forces would be a “legitimate military target” if they went to war against Ukraine.

If North Korean troops “fight alongside Russian troops in this conflict and attack Ukrainian troops, Ukrainian troops have the right to defend themselves,” Austin said.

They will be “combatants fighting together, and you have every reason to believe… that they will be killed and wounded as a result of the fighting,” he said.

Pyongyang denies that it has sent troops to Russia, but its deputy foreign minister said that if such a deployment were to occur, it would be in line with global standards.

North Korea and Russia are both subject to United Nations (UN) sanctions. Pyongyang was censured for its nuclear weapons program, and Moscow over the war in Ukraine.

North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui was in Moscow on Wednesday to hold “strategic” talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, while Wang Yi, the top diplomat of China, Pyongyang’s main diplomatic ally, spoke on the Ukraine crisis by the deputy foreign minister. .Russia in Beijing.

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