North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a pact this week that includes a clause that commits Russia and North Korea to mutual aid if one of the two suffers an attack. Faced with this scenario, South Korea considering sending weapons to Ukraine because he believes that this alliance is a risk to regional stability. Vladimir Putin responded by warning Seoul that that move would be “a big mistake.”
Until now, the South Korean capital, Seoul, provided only humanitarian aid to Ukraine and maintained a policy by which does not send weapons to countries that are mired in a military conflict. Now, however, the South Korean authorities recognize that they are going to rethink that policy while the United States, a traditional ally of South Korea, showed its support for its response to the alliance between Russia and North Korea.
National security adviser Chang Ho-jin said South Korea planned to “reconsider the issue of arms support to Ukraine“. Likewise, he summoned the Russian ambassador, Georgy Zinoviev, to protest against the pact, demanding that Moscow “immediately cease” military cooperation with Pyongyang.
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The Russian government criticized Milei’s closeness with Zelensky and warned about sending weapons to Ukraine: “It will be considered a hostile act”
“There are several options for providing weapons and our position on recent events between Russia and North Korea It depends on how Russia approaches the situation in the future“said the advisor in statements to the local news agency Yonhap published this Friday. Among the possible weapons that Seoul would be considering sending include 155-millimeter artillery projectiles and air defense systems, government sources revealed to that medium.
Putin’s statements during his visit to Vietnam
Putin’s comments come in response to the position taken by South Korea; The Russian president was in Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital, this Thursday. There he signed eleven cooperation agreements in energy, educational and scientific matters. A declaration strengthening defense cooperation was also signed, although no further details were provided.
“Sending lethal weapons to Ukraine into combat zones would be a big mistake,” Putin said. “If that happens, we will make the corresponding decision, which will probably not be to the liking of the current leaders of South Korea,” said the Russian president who is on a brief Asian tour.
Putin’s conditions to end the war with Ukraine: withdraw his troops and resign from NATO
“South Korea, the Republic of Korea, has nothing to worry about because our military assistance under the treaty we signed only arises if aggression is carried out against one of the signatories. As far as I know, the Republic of Korea is not planning aggression against the DPRK (North Korea),” Putin told reporters.
It should also be noted that the Russian president has an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for war crimes that limits Putin’s travel abroad. Vietnam does not belong to this body, so it has no obligation to arrest the Russian president.
However, Seoul also condemned the strategic partnership agreement between Moscow and Pyongyang.
“The government clearly emphasizes that any cooperation directly or indirectly helping North Korea increase its military power is a violation of UN Security Council resolutions and is subject to monitoring and sanctions by the international community“said the presidential office.
Regarding the mutual assistance agreement in case of aggression signed on Wednesday with Pyongyang, the Russian president wanted to downplay it, arguing that “it is nothing new.”
“We have signed this agreement because the old one has ceased to exist. And in the previous agreement of 1961 exactly the same things were included, there is nothing new,” he stated, in statements collected by Efe.
Although he admitted that “in the current context this seems something extraordinary,” he added that “almost nothing has changed” and that the situation in the world requires legally strengthening relations with Russia’s partners, especially in Asia.
L.T.
