SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea warned Tuesday it could consider supplying weapons to Ukraine in response to North Korea allegedly dispatching troops to Russia, as both North Korea and Russia denied the movements.
The South Korean statement is apparently meant to pressure Russia not to bring in North Korean troops in its war against Ukraine. South Korean officials worry that Russia may reward North Korea by giving it sophisticated weapons technologies that can boost the North’s nuclear and missile programs that target South Korea.
In an emergency National Security Council meeting, top South Korean officials condemned North Korea’s alleged dispatch of troops as “a grave security threat” to South Korea and the international community. They described North Korea as “a criminal group” that forces its youths to serve as Russian mercenaries for an unjustifiable war, the South Korean presidential office said in a statement.
The officials agreed to take phased countermeasures, linking the level of their responses to progress in Russian-North Korean military cooperation, according to the statement.
Possible steps include diplomatic, economic and military options, and South Korea could consider sending both defensive and offensive weapons to Ukraine, a senior South Korean presidential official told reporters on condition of anonymity in a background briefing.
The official said North Korea could attempt to get high-tech Russian technologies to perfect its nuclear missiles. The official said Russia's possible help for North Korea's efforts to modernize its outdated conventional weapons systems and acquire a space-based surveillance system would pose a serious security threat to South Korea as well.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, South Korea has joined U.S.-led sanctions against Moscow and shipped humanitarian and financial support to Kyiv. But it has avoided directly supplying arms to Ukraine in line with its policy of not supplying weapons to countries actively engaged in conflicts.
South Korea’s spy agency said last week it had confirmed that North Korea sent 1,500 special operation forces to Russia this month. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said his government had intelligence that 10,000 North Korea soldiers were being prepared to join invading Russian forces.
North Korea and Russia have been sharply boosting their cooperation in the past two years. In June, they signed a major defense deal requiring both countries to use all available means to provide immediate military assistance if either is attacked. South Korea said at the time it would consider sending arms to Ukraine, a similar statement that it made Tuesday.
South Korea's spy agency said that North Korea had sent more than 13,000 containers of artillery, missiles and other conventional arms to Russia since August 2023 to replenish its dwindling weapons stockpiles.
North Korea and Russia have denied the North Korean troop deployment as well as the purported weapons transfer.
At a U.N. Security Council meeting Monday, Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia dismissed the South Korean assertion as well as Western allegations of Iran supplying Russia with missiles and China providing arms components. He accused the West of “circulating scaremongering with Iranian, Chinese and Korean bogeymen, each one of which is more absurd than the one before.”
At a separate U.N. committee meeting, a North Korean diplomat said his delegation feels no need to comment on the troop dispatch, calling it “groundless, stereotype rumors aimed at smearing the image” of the North and undermining the legitimate cooperation between two sovereign states.
Also Tuesday, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called South Korean and Ukraine governments “lunatics” as she slammed them for making “reckless remarks against nuclear weapons states.”
The U.S. and NATO haven’t confirmed North Korea’s troop deployment, but they warned against the danger of such a development if true.
U.S. deputy ambassador to the U.N. Robert Wood said that if true, the North Korean troop dispatch marks “a dangerous and highly concerning development” and noted that the U.S. was “consulting with our allies and partners on such a dramatic move.”
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Associated Press writer Kim Tong-hyung contributed to this report.
FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un smile during their meeting at the Pyongyang Sunan International Airport outside Pyongyang, North Korea, on June 19, 2024. (Gavriil Grigorov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - South Korean mechanized unit personnel parade with their armored vehicles during the media day for the 76th anniversary of Armed Forces Day at Seoul air base in Seongnam, South Korea, on Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)
FILE - Soldiers march in a parade for the 70th anniversary of North Korea's founding day in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Sept. 9, 2018. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — As America hurtles toward the 2024 election, the road to the presidency passes through Georgia, one of the seven battleground states considered vital to the fortunes of anyone who wants to win the White House. Georgia also is one of the few southern states considered up for grabs, having gone to President Joe Biden in 2020 after a run of six-straight wins there by Republican presidential candidates.
Four years after Biden won the state by fewer than 12,000 votes, the campaigns of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have poured financial and tactical resources into the state based on the theory that the outcome may be determined as much by who doesn't vote as who does.
The question is whether their sales pitches will have the ear of everyone. For people at the lower rungs of the economic ladder, there are often more basic priorities. Bibb County made a good test area with its high poverty rate, diverse demographics and large number of seemingly eligible voters who stayed home in 2020. Interviews with dozens of women and some men on the lower socioeconomic level showed there is a possible relationship between poverty and turnout that candidates are working to overcome.
More than 150 million people voted but even with 2020’s record number of ballots cast, more than 75 million people eligible to vote did not cast ballots, according to a study by the Center for Inclusive Democracy at the University of Southern California. In Bibb County, about 47,000 people who were eligible to vote, defined as legal citizens 18 or older, did not.
Other data from AP VoteCast, a survey of both voters and nonvoters, determined that a percentage of those nonvoters would be more impoverished. The survey showed that nonvoters in 2020 tended to be poorer, younger, less educated, unmarried and minorities. The data, collected by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, also found that among voters in 2020, 15% reported having a household income under $25,000 in the previous year, compared with roughly 3 in 10 nonvoters. Put those characteristics against a population of 27 million adults who live below poverty, according to the Census, and the figures suggest that people on the lower rungs of the economic ladder probably make up a significant subset of all nonvoters.
A majority of Bibb County residents are minorities and over 60% are unmarried. Four in 10 are younger than 30 and nearly half only have a high school education. Just over 60% of students in Bibb County schools are eligible for free and reduced-price meals with 36 of the schools offering free and reduced-price meals to all students, said a spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Education.
Kathy McCollum, president of the Middle Georgia Community Food Bank, said the poverty rate is 18.5% in the 24 counties served by her organization, including Bibb. She said donations come in from retail grocers, growers, manufacturers and processors. Financial donations rose dramatically in 2020 during the pandemic but have fallen off. Food from her organization is distributed to over 200 partner agencies, which are nonprofits or churches that distribute to struggling residents and families.
The reasons people offered were varied. Some were prevented because of past criminal justice problems. Others had childcare and transportation concerns. Early voting, especially for those with unstable housing situations, could be hard because of address requirements. And some didn't see how discussions about money for home buyers, college debt forgiveness and tax cuts for the wealthy pertained to them. Linda Solomon, 58, said her concern is stretching her Social Security disability far enough to cover her apartment rent and utilities. She relies on food pantries and organizations like Mother's Nest in Macon to get her through the tight periods. She stopped voting years ago when she decided her circumstances stayed the same through multiple administrations.
It is a nonprofit that began in 2022. Its founder and executive director, Sabrina Friday, remembered her own experiences as a teen mother with little help and saw the need. The organization provides a variety of services, including food, clothing, baby furniture and classes ranging from self-care to infant CPR and dental clinics. She stresses civic engagement but "when you are sleeping in a hotel and not sure where your next meal is coming from and your car has been seized, voting is not high on the list of priorities.”
LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, said she thinks there’s beginning to be discussion about basic pocketbook issues, like food costs and housing. But, there needs to be more to entice people who are ignored by society to see voting as something that can solve their systemic problems. The stock market and unemployment “are not an indicator of how well people are doing.”
Janiyah Thomas, a Trump campaign official, said get-out-the-vote efforts are focused on low-propensity voters. She added they are also utilizing volunteers and using traditional canvassing methods as well as TikTok and outside groups.
The Harris campaign has an office in Macon staffed by six full-time team members who are focused on reaching communities throughout the region. That includes canvassing and door-knocking in lower-income and other areas. A campaign official said there also is a large rural presence in Georgia that skews towards lower-income residents.
Linda Solomon, a client at Mother's Nest in Macon, Ga., poses for a photo on June 22, 2024. She does not intend to vote because she feels the lives of the poor don't improve regardless of what party controls the White House and government. (AP Photo/Gary Fields)
In this image from video, Sabrina Friday, the executive director of Mother's Nest in Macon, Ga., talks during an interview June 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Gary Fields)
Karimah McFarlane, a Howard University graduate and owner of Buckhead Art & Company in Atlanta, poses for a photo on Sept. 10, 2024. She hosted a viewing party of the presidential debate between Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, (AP Photo/Gary Fields)
