Seoul warns 'further action' if Ukraine does not apologise over prisoner-of-war row
President Lee Jae Myung also accused Kyiv of "attempting to provoke a war on the Korean Peninsula".
Seoul warns of 'further action' if Ukraine does not apologise over prisoner-of-war row
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has threatened unspecified "further action" if Ukraine fails to issue a public apology for disclosing that two North Korean prisoners of war had been transferred to the South.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky revealed the information at the UN general assembly last week, prompting anger in Seoul, which said the arrangement was supposed to remain secret.
On Thursday, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called the matter a "diplomatic misunderstanding" and said Kyiv was "working" to settle it.
Lee dismissed that description on X, saying it involved "the dignity of the Korean people and the nation".
Last week, Lee's office said Ukraine had asked for the transfer to be kept confidential, partly to protect the North Koreans' families and also because Kyiv wanted to avoid criticism that it had missed a chance to trade the soldiers for Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Zelensky's office replied that the two sides had made no such secrecy agreement, further intensifying the dispute.
Lee also came under strong criticism at home after Zelensky's disclosure, with South Korea's opposition accusing him of concealing the transfer to placate Pyongyang.
The two soldiers, who were among thousands of North Koreans backing Russia in the Ukraine war, had previously told local media they wanted to be sent to South Korea.
In comments to Ukrainian media on Thursday, Sybiha said he "hopes that this situation will be resolved in the very near future".
"We are working on it. For us, South Korea is an important country. And I really hope for momentum, continuation, and concrete results that we are truly achieving with them," he said.
In response, Lee accused Kyiv of "attempting to provoke a war on the Korean Peninsula".
"We express serious regret that, instead of acknowledging the facts of the agreement and apologising, they are talking about an imminent military clash between the North and South," he said in an X post.
Seoul has supported Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion, but has maintained its long-standing policy of not supplying lethal weapons to any country involved in an active war.