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\nSouth Korea\u2019s president said Tuesday that growing military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang posed a major global security threat, after Washington accused North Korea of sending 10,000 soldiers to train in Russia.
\u201cAs the war in Ukraine continues for the third year, North Korea has gone beyond providing weapons to Russia and has even deployed troops,\u201d President Yoon Suk Yeol said.
Seoul\u2019s spy agency had previously said the North had sent thousands of soldiers, including elite special forces, to Russia, with Washington saying Monday that 10,000 were now training in the country.
\u201cThis illegal military cooperation between Russia and North Korea is a significant security threat to the international community and could pose a serious risk to our national security,\u201d President Yoon Suk Yeol said.
\u201cWe must thoroughly examine all possibilities and prepare countermeasures,\u201d Yoon said, adding that \u201cmeasures would be actively taken step-by-step\u201d depending on the progress of Russia-North Korea military cooperation, according to the presidential office.
That cooperation \u201cfundamentally shakes the rules-based international order and threatens peace on the Korean Peninsula and globally\u201d, he added.
The North Korean foreign minister was headed to Moscow, Pyongyang\u2019s official Korean Central News Agency said Tuesday, without giving details.
South Korea, a major arms exporter, has previously said it would reconsider whether to supply weapons directly to Ukraine, something its Western allies have long called for. Seoul has so far resisted due to longstanding domestic policy.
Seoul has already sold billions of dollars of tanks, howitzers, attack aircraft and rocket launchers to Poland, a key ally of Kyiv.
In June, South Korea agreed to transfer the knowledge needed to build K2 tanks to Poland, which experts have said could be a key step towards production inside Ukraine.
In a Monday phone call with EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, Yoon described the current situation as \u201cgrave\u201d, warning that North Korean troops\u2019 entry into the front lines could \u201chappen sooner than expected\u201d.
Ukraine said last week that North Korean soldiers had arrived in the \u201ccombat zone\u201d in Russia\u2019s Kursk border region.
North Korea has denied sending troops to Russia, but in the first comment in state media last week, its vice foreign minister said that were such a deployment to happen, it would be in line with global norms.
\u201cIf there is such a thing that the world media is talking about, I think it will be an act conforming with the regulations of international law,\u201d said Kim Jong Gyu, North Korea\u2019s vice foreign minister in charge of Russian affairs.<\/p>\n