Second Vice Foreign Minister Kang In-sun has denounced North Korea's troop deployment and weapons supply to Russia, stressing that such illegal activities pose a grave security threat to the international community.
Kang made the remarks during the high-level session of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on Monday, noting the North continues to violate UN sanctions with its weapons development against international efforts to promote peace.
"Vice Minister Kang condemned North Korea for supplying weapons and ballistic missiles to Russia and deploying over 11,000 troops, sacrificing them as cannon fodder for the regime," the foreign ministry said in a release.
"She pointed out that North Korea continues to violate multiple UN Security Council resolutions with its persistent development of nuclear weapons and missiles, defying international efforts to promote peace," the ministry said.
Kang urged Pyongyang to "fully, verifiably and irreversibly" abandon all weapons programs and return to denuclearization talks, and reiterated that North Korea's illegal activities pose a security threat to the entire international community, according to the ministry.
Addressing Russia's invasion of Ukraine, now in its third year, Kang voiced concerns over the erosion of the international norms on disarmament and nonproliferation, calling on the five nuclear-weapons states -- the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia -- to step up bilateral and multilateral discussions to enhance mutual trust and transparency.
The CD is a multilateral disarmament forum on negotiating arms control, such as the cessation of the nuclear arms race, prevention of nuclear war and effective measures to assure non-nuclear-weapon states against the use of nuclear weapons.
Major arms control agreements negotiated at the CD forum include the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. (Yonhap)
