MOSCOW/SEOUL, Oct 29 (Reuters) - North Korea's foreign minister arrived in Russia on Tuesday for talks as the Russia-Ukraine war appeared to take a dangerous new turn, with NATO and South Korea expressing alarm that North Korean troops could soon be joining in on Moscow's side.
U.S. President Joe Biden said Ukraine should strike back against North Korean troops "if they cross into Ukraine."
NATO said on Monday thousands of North Korean troops were moving toward the front line, a development which has prompted Kyiv to call for more weapons and an international plan to keep those troops at bay.
The Pentagon confirmed on Tuesday that some North Korean soldiers are in the Kursk region, a Russian border area where Ukrainian forces staged a major incursion in August and hold hundreds of square kilometres of territory. A couple of thousand more are heading there, it said.
The United States has said any North Korean troops fighting in the war would be "fair game" for Ukrainian attacks and that Washington would not impose any fresh limits on Ukraine's use of U.S. weapons if North Korea entered the fight.
South Korea, which remains technically at war with the nuclear-armed North decades after the 1950-1953 Korean War, also condemned the deployments, with officials in Seoul worried about what Russia may be providing to Pyongyang in return.
North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui arrived in Russia's far east on Tuesday on her way to Moscow, Russian state media said. Russian state news agencies said it was not clear who Choe, making her second visit in six weeks, would meet.
The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had no plans to meet her.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said after talks with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday that the North Korean moves were sending the war into a new phase.
"This war is becoming internationalized, extending beyond two countries," Zelenskiy said on X.
"We agreed to strengthen intelligence and expertise exchange, intensify contacts at all levels, especially the highest, in order to develop an action strategy and countermeasures to address this escalation," Zelenskiy said.
Yoon told Zelenskiy that if North Korea receives aid from Russia and is able to glean military experience and knowledge from its involvement in the war it would pose a "great threat" to South Korea's security, his office said.
South Korea has said it may start supplying weapons to Ukraine if North Korean troops joined Russia's war. Putin has not denied the presence of North Korean troops in the country.
Photo from Reuters
