NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg asked South Korea on Monday to increase military aid to Ukraine, suggesting that it reconsider its policy of not exporting weapons to countries in conflict. Stoltenberg is in Seoul as part of the first stop on his Asia tour, which will also take him to Japan.
Its goal is to strengthen ties with the region’s democratic allies in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and growing competition from China. Meeting with senior South Korean officials on Sunday and Monday, he urged South Korea to do more to help kyiv, given the “urgent need for more ammunition.”
He also noted that countries like Germany and Norway, which have “long-standing policies of not exporting weapons to countries in conflict,” reviewed that measure after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February last year.
“If we believe in freedom and democracy, if we don’t want autocracies and totalitarianisms to win, then weapons are needed,” he said from the Chey Institute, in South Korea an increasingly important arms exporter in the world and recently signed deals to sell hundreds of tanks to European countries, including NATO member Poland.
However, South Korean law prohibits exporting weapons to countries in active conflict, which has made it more difficult for Seoul to supply weapons directly to Ukraine, even though it currently provides non-lethal and humanitarian assistance.
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