SEOUL, October 25 ------ South Korea warned it could consider supplying weapons to Ukraine in response to North Korea allegedly dispatching troops to Russia, as both Pyongyang and Moscow denied the movements, which the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) chief said would mark a "significant escalation." The warning was apparently meant to discourage Russia from bringing in North Korean troops for its war in Ukraine. South Korean officials worry that Moscow may reward Pyongyang by giving it sophisticated weapons technologies that can boost the North's nuclear and missile programs that target the South.
In an emergency meeting of the National Security Council, top South Korean officials condemned the alleged deployment as "a grave security threat" to Seoul and the international community. They described North Korea as "a criminal group" that forces its youths to serve as Russian mercenaries for an unjustifiable war, the South's presidential office said in a statement.
The officials agreed to take phased countermeasures, linking the level of their responses to progress in Russian-North Korean military cooperation, it added. Possible steps include diplomatic, economic and military options, and South Korea could consider sending both defensive and offensive weapons to Ukraine, a senior South Korean presidential official told reporters on condition of anonymity in a background briefing.
North Korea could attempt to get high-tech Russian technologies to perfect its nuclear missiles, the official said, adding that Moscow's possible help for Pyongyang's efforts to modernize its outdated weapons systems and acquire a space-based surveillance system would pose a serious security threat. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, South Korea has joined United States-led sanctions against Moscow and shipped humanitarian and financial support to Kyiv. But it has avoided directly supplying arms to Ukraine in line with its policy of not supplying weapons to countries actively engaged in conflicts. South Korea's spy agency said last week that North Korea sent 1,500 members of its special operation forces to Russia this month. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said his government had intelligence on 10,000 North Korean soldiers being prepared to join invading Russian forces.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said later on Tuesday that South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was sending experts to Brussels soon to brief ambassadors at the 32-nation military alliance. "That will now happen early next week, and then we will see whether North Korea is indeed, or not, supporting Russia's illegal war in Ukraine," Rutte said. "If that would be the case, if they would be sending troops to Ukraine, that would mark a significant escalation," he added.
Source: manilatimes.net
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