NATO’s secretary general on Monday asked South Korea to increase military aid to Ukraine, suggesting a review of its policy of not supplying arms to countries at war.
“If we believe in freedom, if we believe in democracy, if we don’t want autocracies and totalitarianism to prevail, then they need guns,” said Jens Stoltenberg of the Chey Institute in the South Korean capital.
Stoltenberg met with South Korean government officials on Sunday, including Foreign Minister Park Jin, as part of a journey to strengthen ties between NATO and allies in Asia.
South Korea is an increasingly important global arms exporter and recently initialed contracts for the sale of several hundred tanks to European countries, including NATO member Poland.
But South Korean laws prohibit sales to belligerent countries, making it difficult to supply arms to Ukraine, which has supplied Seoul with non-lethal equipment and humanitarian aid.
Kiev “urgently needs more ammunition,” said Jens Stoltenberg, noting that countries such as Germany and Norway, with similar laws, had revised aid policies for Kiev.
So did the Secretary General of NATO the Russian military is preparing for another war effort and that Moscow is receiving arms from North Korea and other countries, White House secret services said.
On Sunday, Pyongyang denied the allegation, warning the United States of a “deeply undesirable outcome” if it continued to spread this “falsified rumor.”
The North Korean government said the accusation was a “foolish attempt to justify” Washington’s imminent shipment of military equipment to Ukraine, which last week promised to deliver 31 Abrams tanks to Kiev.
Source: DN
