South Korea does not rule out direct arms shipment to Ukraine

(Seoul) South Korea does not rule out directly delivering weapons to Ukraine, the South Korean president announced Thursday, referring to a possible adjustment of Seoul’s policy in this area.

The government of this country, a major arms exporter, had already indicated that it was studying the possibility of sending weapons directly to Kyiv, in response to the deployment of soldiers by Pyongyang to support Moscow in its war against ‘Ukraine.

It has opposed it until now because of a long-standing national policy that prevents it from supplying weapons to countries engaged in active conflicts.

“Now, depending on the level of North Korean involvement, we will gradually adjust our support strategy in several stages,” South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said at a news conference in Seoul.

“This means that we do not exclude the possibility of providing weapons,” he added, specifying, without saying more, that “if we engage in arms support, we consider weapons as a priority defensive”.

According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, 11,000 North Korean soldiers have been deployed in the Russian region of Kursk, bordering Ukraine, to support the Kremlin forces. During the same conference, Mr. Yoon claimed to have agreed, during a telephone exchange with American President Donald Trump, to a meeting which would take place “in the near future”.

“I think we will have the opportunity to meet during this year,” he said.

During this telephone exchange, the two heads of state discussed several topics related to North Korea, such as “the sending of more than 7,000 garbage balloons, the jamming of GPS” and the North Korean missile launches. , noted Mr. Yoon.

On Wednesday, the upper house of the Russian Parliament ratified a mutual defense treaty with North Korea, concluded during a rare visit by Vladimir Putin to Pyongyang in June, which notably provides for “immediate military aid” reciprocal in the event of attack against one of the two countries.

A participation of North Korean soldiers in the fighting, which the West believes is imminent, would be a new blow for the Ukrainian troops, lacking men and weapons, who are retreating on many sections of the front.