Photo : YONHAP News = Korean Central News Agency
The defense ministry says it is watching for signs that North Korea is providing military or civilian support for Russia’s war effort.
A foreign ministry official also said the government is keeping a close eye on military cooperation between the North and Russia in the wake of Ukrainian media reports that Russia is assembling a special battalion comprising some three-thousand North Korean soldiers for its war in Ukraine.
The official expressed serious concerns over reports that Moscow and Pyongyang are expanding cooperation beyond the arms trade to weapons production and the deployment of troops.
The official stressed that providing support, direct or indirect, for the North’s military is a violation of UN Security Council resolutions and thus subject to the international community’s monitoring and sanctions.
The official said Seoul was again calling on Russia and North Korea to suspend their illegal military cooperation.