Photo : YONHAP News
President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Monday that the South Korean government will never just sit and watch North Korea and Russia deepening their military ties.
The president made the remarks during a phone call with North Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO) Secretary General Mark Rutte, while sharing information on the North’s deployment of its troops for Russia’s war against Ukraine and discussing responses to the matter.
The president told Rutte that North Korea, which has provided Russia with massive weapons of mass destruction, is now sending its elite troops to support Russia’s war efforts, adding South Korea’s spy agency recently found that about 15-hundred North Korean special forces were deployed to Russia for training and acclimatizing at local military bases.
Yoon said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and reckless military cooperation between Russia and North Korea reaffirm that the security of the Indo-Pacific region and the Atlantic region are inextricably linked.
He added that Russia’s invasion and military ties between Moscow and Pyongyang fundamentally undermine the rules-based international order and pose a threat to peace of the Korean Peninsula and the world.
The president said that his government will actively take steps in accordance with the progress of military cooperation between North Korea and Russia, while closely monitoring the movements of the two nations.
Expressing grave concerns about the North’s troop dispatch, the NATO chief said that NATO is ready to actively cooperate with South Korea to respond to military ties between North Korea and Russia, which pose threats to global peace and safety.
Rutte also asked Yoon to send a government delegation to NATO to share detailed information on the matter, expressing hope that NATO, South Korea and Ukraine will strengthen defense cooperation and security dialogue to deal with the North’s troop dispatch.