South Korea summons Russia’s ambassador as tensions rise with North Korea

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea summoned Russia’s ambassador Friday to protest the country’s new defense pact with North Korea, as border tensions continued to rise with vague threats and brief incursions, apparently accidental, of the North Korean troops.

Early on Friday, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un issued a vague threat of retaliation after South Korean activists flew over the border in balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets, and the South Korean military said it had fired warning shots the previous day to repel. North Korean soldiers who briefly crossed the rivals’ land border for the third time this month.

That came two days after Moscow and Pyongyang reached a pact pledging mutual defense assistance if either is attacked, and a day after Seoul responded by saying it would consider providing of arms to Ukraine to fight the Russian invasion.

South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Hong Kyun summoned Russian Ambassador Georgy Zinoviev to protest the deal between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un and demanded Moscow immediately end its alleged military cooperation with Pyongyang.

Kim, the South Korean diplomat, stressed that any cooperation that directly or indirectly helps the North develop its military capabilities would violate UN Security Council resolutions and pose a threat to the South’s security, and warned of consequences for relations Seoul with Moscow.

Zinoviev told Korean officials that any attempt to “threaten or blackmail” Russia was unacceptable and that his country’s agreement with North Korea did not target specific third countries, the Russian embassy wrote on its X account. The South Korean ministry said that Zinoviev promised to convey Seoul’s concerns to his superiors in Moscow.

Leaflet campaigns by South Korean civil activists in recent weeks have prompted a resurgence of Cold War-style psychological warfare along the inter-Korean border.

South Korean civil activists, led by North Korean defector Park Sang-hak, said they sent 20 balloons carrying 300,000 propaganda leaflets, 5,000 USB sticks with South Korean pop songs and TV dramas, and 3,000 of US dollar bills from the South Korean border town. Paju Thursday evening.

Pyongyang is angered by the material and fears it could demoralize frontline troops and residents and ultimately weaken Kim Jong Un’s grip on power, analysts say.

In a statement carried by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency, Kim Yo Jong, one of her brother’s top foreign policy officials, called the activists “deserters” and issued what appeared to be a threat of retaliation.

“When you do something you’ve been clearly warned not to do, it’s natural to find yourself doing something you shouldn’t have done,” she said, without specifying what North would do.

After earlier leafleting by South Korean activists, North Korea launched more than 1,000 balloons that dropped tons of garbage into South Korea, breaking tiles and windows and causing other property damage. Kim Yo Jong previously suggested that the balloons could become the North’s standard response to the leaflets, saying the North would respond by “scattering dozens of times more garbage than is being scattered on us.”

In response, South Korea resumed anti-North Korean propaganda broadcasts with military loudspeakers installed on the border for the first time in years, to which Kim Yo Jong, in another state media statement, warned that Seoul ” creates a prelude to a very dangerous situation. situation.”

Tensions between the Koreas are at an all-time high in recent years as Kim Jong Un accelerates his nuclear and missile development and seeks to strengthen his regional base by aligning himself with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a showdown against the US-led West.

South Korea, a growing arms exporter with a well-equipped military backed by the United States, says it is considering increasing support for Ukraine in response. Seoul has already offered humanitarian aid and other support while joining US-led economic sanctions against Moscow. But it did not directly supply weapons, citing a long-standing policy of not supplying weapons to countries actively involved in conflict.

Putin told reporters in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Thursday that supplying arms to Ukraine would be “a very big mistake” and said South Korea “shouldn’t worry” about the deal unless it plans aggression against Pyongyang.

South Korea’s foreign ministry said Minister Cho Tae-yul had separate phone calls with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa on Friday to discuss the new pact. Diplomats agreed that the deal posed a serious threat to peace and stability in the region and vowed to strengthen trilateral coordination to deal with the challenges posed by the alignment between Moscow and Pyongyang, Cho’s ministry said in a statement.

North Korea is extremely sensitive to criticism of Kim’s authoritarian rule and efforts to reach his people with foreign news and other media.

In 2015, when South Korea resumed broadcasting the loudspeakers for the first time in 11 years, North Korea fired artillery rounds across the border, prompting South Korea to return fire, according to South Korean officials. No casualties were reported.

South Korea’s military said there were signs North Korea was installing its own loudspeakers on the border, although they were not yet operational.

In the latest border incident, South Korea’s chiefs of staff said several North Korean soldiers engaged in unspecified construction work briefly crossed the military demarcation line that divides the two countries around 11 a.m.: 00 Thursday.

The South Korean military issued a warning and fired warning shots, after which the North Korean soldiers withdrew. The joint chiefs did not immediately release further details, including why it released the information a day late.

South Korea’s military believes the recent border incursions were not intentional, as North Korean soldiers did not return fire and retreated after warning shots.

The South’s military has noted that the North is deploying large numbers of soldiers to front-line areas to build suspected anti-tank barriers, reinforce roads and plant mines in an apparent attempt to strengthen their side of the border. Seoul believes the efforts are likely aimed at preventing North Korean civilians and soldiers from escaping to the South.

Kim Tong-hyung, The Associated Press