[北, 러시아 파병]
At the request of the NATO Secretary General to dispatch a delegation
Establishment of a joint team including the National Intelligence Service, the Army, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
We decided to continue joint response with the international community.
A joint government delegation will visit the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a Western military alliance, early next week to share information about North Korea‘s deployment of troops to Russia. Amid speculation that the deployment of the ‘Storm Corps’, which North Korea has dispatched to Russia, which is at war with Ukraine, to the front line is imminent, cooperation between the South Korean government and NATO is also accelerating.
According to the National Intelligence Service on the 25th, the delegation (headed by Hong Jang-won, First Deputy Director of the National Intelligence Service) decided to explain the status of North Korean military deployment at the North Atlantic Council (NAC) held at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on the 28th (local time). NAC is the highest decision-making body in which resident representatives of 32 NATO member countries participate. Meetings with high-ranking officials, including NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, are also scheduled. This follows President Yoon Seok-yeol’s request in a phone call with General Rutte on the 21st that “the Korean government send a delegation to NATO to share detailed information.” President Yoon said on this day, “We will quickly dispatch a delegation and take steps to revitalize security cooperation between Korea, Ukraine, and NATO.”
The delegation then visited the European Union (EU) headquarters in Brussels and decided to share information on North Korea’s troop deployment with the Political and Security Committee (PSC), in which 27 EU member states participate. The delegation was led by First Deputy Director Hong Jang-won, who oversees the National Intelligence Service’s overseas intelligence work on North Korea, and consisted of about 10 people, including Park Jin-young, head of the intelligence department at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Yoo Jeong-hyeon, the European Union ambassador to Belgium.
As the government has decided to take step-by-step measures according to the progress of North Korea-Russia military cooperation, it is expected that it will share information with NATO and the European Union, confirm the response direction they are planning, and outline our response measures based on this. .
As President Yoon has even left open the possibility of supporting lethal weapons to Ukraine, there is a possibility that NATO will request active support from Korea, including weapons support. Previously, in a special lecture he gave to Korea last year, then-NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg emphasized, “I urge Korea to take action on the specific issue of military support.”
The government is expected to continue its joint response with the international community by sharing intimate information about North Korea’s troop deployment to Russia with allies, including NATO members. A diplomatic source said, “We will inform the world, including our allies, that North Korea-Russia military cooperation is a major threat to the security of the Korean Peninsula, the Indo-Pacific region, and the European region, and we will continue to respond to prevent North Korea and Russia from increasing the scale of their troop deployment.” .
Reporter Ko Do-ye yea@donga.com