(Seoul) North Korea on Thursday called criticism by the United States and its allies of its support for Russian military operations against Ukraine, including through the deployment of troops, “irresponsible provocations”.
Posted at 5:39 p.m.
In a statement carried by North Korea’s official Central News Agency (KNCA), a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Monday’s warning from ten countries and the European Union “distorted and slandered” the ties of “normal cooperation” between Pyongyang and Moscow.
Pyongyang has sent thousands of troops to bolster Russia’s war effort, notably in the Kursk border region, where Ukrainian forces seized territory earlier this year.
On Monday, these countries and the EU said that North Korea’s growing involvement in the war in Ukraine, in support of Russia, constituted a “dangerous widening” of the conflict, with serious consequences for the security of the Europe and the Indo-Pacific region.
The foreign ministers of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and the United Kingdom Uni, as well as the high representative of the European Union, signed the declaration, published by Washington.
“We urge North Korea to immediately cease all assistance to Russia for its war of aggression against Ukraine, including by withdrawing its troops,” the statement said.
But Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry hit back, with the spokesperson expressing “grave concern and protest, denouncing and rejecting in the strongest terms the irresponsible provocations of the United States and its vassal forces.”
North Korea said the ‘madness’ of the ‘hostile forces’ response indicated that increased cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow was ‘effectively deterring the United States and the West’s ill-intentioned expansion of influence’ .
North Korea has not specifically mentioned deploying its troops alongside Russian forces, saying only that the war in Ukraine “has been prolonged” by what it calls “adventurist military policy and the politics of “exclusive alliance” of Washington and its allies.
North Korea will “firmly safeguard its legitimate right as a sovereign state, impose no restrictions on its exercise, and continue to make crucial efforts to safeguard regional and global peace and security,” according to the statement released by KCNA .
A senior US military official said Tuesday that “hundreds” of North Korean soldiers had been killed or injured in fighting with the Ukrainian army in Russia’s Kursk region.
North Korea and Russia have strengthened military ties since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. A historic defense pact between Pyongyang and Moscow, signed in June, took effect earlier this month.
