South Korea, Ukraine discuss handling of N.Korean prisoners of war

FILE PHOTO: South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul looks on as he talks with High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell (not pictured) during a meeting at the Foreign Ministry on November 04, 2024 in Seoul, South Korea. Chung Sung-Jun/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

UPDATED Mar 17, 2025, 06:41 PM

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SEOUL - South Korea's Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul sought Kyiv's cooperation in the handling of North Korean prisoners of war during a telephone call on Monday with his Ukrainian counterpart Andrii Sybiha, Seoul's foreign ministry said.

North Korea has deployed thousands of troops to support Russian forces fighting in Ukraine, Ukrainian, U.S. and South Korean assessments show, for Pyongyang's first major involvement in a war since the 1950s.

Cho reaffirmed Seoul's efforts to support the Ukrainian people and said Seoul would accept all North Korean soldiers captured by Ukraine if they wished to go to South Korea, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Kyiv says more than 3,000 North Korean soldiers were killed or injured in Russia by early January 2025.

This year Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said they suspected Pyongyang was preparing to send more troops to Russia to fight Ukrainian forces, despite suffering losses and the capture of some of its soldiers.

In January, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine captured two North Korean soldiers in Russia's Kursk region, in his country's first revelation of such captives taken alive since their entry into the war last autumn. REUTERS

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