South Korea yesterday demanded the immediate pullout of North Korean troops allegedly deployed in Russia as it summoned the Russian ambassador to protest deepening military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow.
South Korea’s spy agency on Friday last week said that it had confirmed that North Korea sent 1,500 special operation forces to Russia this month to support Moscow’s war against Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy earlier said his government had intelligence that 10,000 North Korean soldiers were being prepared to join invading Russian forces.
Photo: EPA-EFE
During a meeting with Russian Ambassador Georgy Zinoviev, South Korean Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Kim Hong-kyun “condemned in the strongest terms” North Korea’s troop dispatch that he said poses “a grave security threat” to South Korea and the international community, the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
Kim said that South Korea in collaboration with the international community would mobilize all available means to deal with an act that threatens its vital national security interests, the statement said.
The Russian embassy quoted Zinoviev as saying that the cooperation between Russia and North Korean is not aimed against the security interests of South Korea.
In a telephone call with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte yesterday, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said that Seoul would not sit idly by “reckless” military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow.
Yoon said South Korea would send a delegation to NATO to exchange information about Russian-North Korean cooperation, Yoon’s office said.
Rutte wrote on social media that North Korea possibly fighting alongside Russia would “mark a significant escalation.”
The US and NATO have not confirmed that North Korean troops were sent to Russia, but the reports of their presence have already stoked concerns in South Korea that Russia might provide North Korea with sophisticated technologies that can sharply enhance its nuclear and missile programs in return for its troop dispatch.
North Korea’s advancing nuclear arsenal is a major security threat to South Korea.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has taken steps to permanently terminate all relations with South Korea and has threatened to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively.
Some observers say South Korea would likely consider supplying weapons to Ukraine if Russian transfers of high-tech nuclear and missile technologies to North Korea are verified.
South Korea has joined US-led sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but it has not directly provided arms to Kyiv, citing its longstanding policy of not supplying weapons to nations actively engaged in conflicts.
Russia earlier denied using North Korean troops in its war with Ukraine. North Korea’s state media has not commented on the matter.
Ukrainian officials released a video allegedly showing North Korean troops lining up to collect Russian military clothes and bags at an unknown location. The Associated Press could not verify the footage independently.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not
RSS