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NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has accused Russia of helping North Korea’s nuclear program in exchange for Pyongyang sending troops to help its war against Ukraine, the first such claim by a senior Western official.
“IN return for the troops and weapons, Russia provides North Korea with the support of its missile and nuclear programs,” Rutte said after a meeting with NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on Wednesday. “Such developments could destabilize the Korean Peninsula and even threaten the United States.”
South Korea and the EU condemned Pyongyang’s troop deployment to Russia last month, saying they were “also deeply concerned” about the possibility of nuclear technology being transferred to North Korea.
Senior officials in Kiev said thousands of North Korean troops he was assigned to the Kursk region of Russiafreeing up Moscow’s forces to fight Ukrainian troops.
Asked what prompted his statement on Wednesday, Rutte declined to elaborate on any “intelligence information”, adding: “But in general, let me say that we should not be naive.”
“Nuclear technology, missile technology, is flowing into North Korea and therefore (there is) a risk now that North Korea will use it,” he added.
Rutte’s statements will increase the pressure on South Korea, which is at the center political crises after President Yoon Suk Yeol’s failed attempt to impose a state of emergency, to directly supply arms to Ukraine.
Yoon and other senior officials in Seoul have described Pyongyang’s direct involvement in the conflict as a security threat to South Korea, which offers North Korean troops valuable battlefield experience and access to Russian military technologies.
But Seoul has continued to resist pleas from Western allies to use its vast stockpile of weapons, preferring to contribute non-lethal aid to Kiev’s war effort.
Edward Howell, a fellow in the Asia-Pacific program at the Chatham House think-tank, said Russia’s growing cooperation with North Korea has already crossed several “red lines” that South Korean officials have cited over the past year as potential conditions for direct arms supplies to Kiev.
“How many more red lines need to be crossed for South Korea to take action?” Howell said, noting that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would consider receiving nuclear technologies from Russia “extremely important.”
“This is part of Kim’s ultimate goal, which is to gain de facto recognition of North Korea as a nuclear-armed state,” he added.
Last year, Kim told a gathering of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly that he intended to “exponentially increase the production of nuclear weapons realize all kinds of nuclear strike methods”.
North Korea is estimated to have assembled 50 nuclear warheads and has enough fissile material to produce 70-90 nuclear weapons, according to the Arms Control Association. South Korea’s military intelligence agency said in October that Pyongyang had completed preparations for its seventh nuclear test.
