NATO chief asks S Korea to ‘step up’ military support for Ukraine
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has encouraged South Korea to “step up” its military support for Ukraine, citing other nations that have altered their export laws in response to the Russian invasion.
On Monday, Stoltenberg delivered the appeal in Seoul, the capital of South Korea.
He is in the city for the first phase of a tour to Asia that will also stop in Japan and is intended to strengthen ties with the democratic friends in the region in light of the conflict in the Ukraine and the escalating rivalry with China.
The alliance wants to manage global threats by expanding partnerships in Asia, according to Stoltenberg, who made this argument in meetings with senior South Korean officials. Events in Europe and North America are connected to those in other regions, he claimed.
He acknowledged South Korea’s nonlethal assistance to Ukraine during a speech at the Chey Institute for Advanced Studies in Seoul, but he pushed it to go farther and said that there was a “urgent need” for ammunition. Invasion is described as a “special operation” by Russia.
He mentioned nations like Germany and Norway that had “longstanding rules not to transfer weapons to countries in conflict,” regulations that had been changed in the wake of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February of last year.
“They need guns,” he continued, “if we believe in freedom, democracy, and if we don’t want autocracy and totalitarianism to succeed.”
The sale of hundreds of tanks to European nations, including NATO member Poland, has lately been agreed upon by South Korea, one of the world’s leading exporters of weapons. However, South Korean law prohibits the shipment of weapons to nations engaged in current hostilities, which Seoul claims makes it challenging to provide weaponry directly to Kyiv.
Last year, South Korea inaugurated its initial diplomatic representation to NATO.
According to Stoltenberg, it is uncertain when the conflict in Ukraine will come to an end because Putin is actively accumulating weapons from nations like North Korea and preparing for “further war.”
