Seoul, Oct 22 (EFE).- The foreign ministers of South Korea and the United Kingdom on Tuesday strongly condemned military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow, including the alleged sending of North Korean troops to Ukraine to support the Russian army.
“We condemn in the strongest terms the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)’s continued unlawful arms transfers and the reported deployment of its troops to the Russian Federation to support Russia’s unlawful war of aggression in Ukraine,” Cho Tae-yul and David Lammy wrote in a joint statement.
The announcement, published Tuesday independently of the joint statement released on Monday after Cho and Lammy met in Seoul, points out that such cooperation violates United Nations Security Council sanctions and “also prolongs the suffering of the Ukrainian people and threatens global security.”
The foreign ministers said Seoul and London were “closely monitoring what Russia provides to the DPRK in return for its provision of arms and military personnel, including Russia’s possible provision of materials and technology to the DPRK in support of Pyongyang’s military objectives.”
“We are also deeply concerned about the possibility for any transfer of nuclear or ballistic missile-related technology to the DPRK, which would jeopardize the international non-proliferation efforts and threaten peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and across the globe,” the statement added.
They said they would work with the international community to “deter further unlawful, reckless and destabilizing behaviour” by Pyongyang and Moscow.
On Friday, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) said that North Korea has decided to send 12,000 soldiers to the Ukrainian front line to support Russia in the war and that some 1,500 troops are already in military bases in the Russian Far East.
The information was released after Ukrainian sources and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed in recent days that Pyongyang was going to supply troops to fight in his country.
Moscow and the Kim Jong-un regime have greatly strengthened their cooperation in the last year, during which the secretive Asian country has supplied a large amount of weapons to Russia. The pair also signed a strategic partnership treaty that provides for mutual assistance in the event that either one is attacked. EFE
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