(Seoul) South Korea summoned the Russian ambassador to Seoul on Friday after North Korea and Russia, under Western sanctions, signed a defense agreement providing for mutual assistance in the event of aggression.
This bilateral agreement, concluded during the Kremlin leader’s visit to North Korea on Wednesday, does not exclude “military-technical cooperation” between the two countries and provides for “mutual assistance in the event of aggression” from one of the signatories , according to Vladimir Putin.
In response, South Korea summoned Russia’s ambassador to Seoul, Georgy Zinoviev, on Friday and “strongly demanded that Russia immediately cease all military cooperation with North Korea and comply with Security Council resolutions “, according to a press release from the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“Violating Security Council resolutions and supporting North Korea will undermine our security and will inevitably have a negative impact on South Korea-Russia relations,” the South Korean vice foreign minister insisted. Kim Hong-kyun in the press release.
United Nations (UN) sanctions have targeted Pyongyang since 2006, but in March Russia vetoed at the UN Security Council a draft resolution extending for one year the mandate of the committee of experts charged with monitoring their application.
Moscow and Pyongyang have been allies since the end of the Korean War (1950-1953) but have become closer since the Russian military operation launched in Ukraine in February 2022.
After the signing of the defense agreement between North Korea and Russia, South Korea said it would “reconsider” its policy barring it from directly supplying weapons to Ukraine.
Seoul has a long-standing policy prohibiting it from selling weapons to active conflict zones, which it has clung to until today despite demands from Washington and Kyiv to reconsider it.
On Thursday, the Kremlin leader warned South Korea that it would make a “grave mistake.”
