Ten countries and the European Union have called North Korea’s increasing involvement in Russia’s war in Ukraine a “dangerous expansion” of the conflict, in a joint statement released by the United States on Monday.
Pyongyang has sent thousands of troops to assist Russian forces. Ukraine announced on Monday that its soldiers had killed or wounded at least 30 North Korean soldiers in Russia’s Kursk region.
“North Korea’s direct support for Russia’s aggression against Ukraine marks a dangerous expansion of the conflict, with serious consequences for European and Indo-Pacific security,” the statement said.
Foreign ministers from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs signed the statement.
They also expressed deep concern over any political, military, or economic support that Russia might provide to North Korea’s illegal weapons programs, including weapons of mass destruction.
North Korea and Russia have strengthened their military ties since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Experts say that Kim Jong Un, the communist leader of nuclear-armed North Korea, is seeking advanced technology from Moscow and benefiting from combat experience for his troops.
The signatories condemned “in the strongest terms” the growing military cooperation, including the “deployment of North Korean troops to Russia for use on the battlefield against Ukraine.”
They added that the export of ballistic missiles, artillery shells, and other military materials from Pyongyang to Russia, as well as Moscow’s training of North Korean soldiers, “constitute flagrant violations of UN Security Council resolutions.”
“We call on North Korea to immediately cease all assistance to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, including the withdrawal of its troops,” the statement said.
The United States and South Korea have accused the North of sending over 10,000 soldiers. /VOA
