Lee Jae-myung explained that South Korean companies may be under attackSEOUL, April 21.
/tass/. The chairman of the leading opposition Democratic party Toburo, Lee Jae-myung, called the possible negative consequences of arms supplies to Ukraine unimaginable.
"There should be no agreements on the supply of weapons to Ukraine at the summit of the Republic of Korea and the United States. If such deliveries really begin, the negative consequences and their impact will be beyond imaginable," Yonhap news agency quoted the politician as saying on Friday. President of the Republic of Korea Yoon Seok-yeol will go to the United States on a state visit on April 24.
Lee Jae-myung explained that South Korean companies may be under attack. "About 150 of our companies, such as Hyundai Motor, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Lotte, are present in Russia, their assets are estimated at 7.6 trillion won ($5.7 billion). The transfer of weapons to Ukraine will actually mean the closure of our companies [in Russia]," the leader of the opposition party suggested.
The chairman of the Democratic Party "Toburo" also noted that such a decision would cause tension in Northeast Asia, since Russia and the DPRK could get closer, and relations between Moscow and Seoul could return to the early 90s of the last century.
According to the politician, the supply of weapons to the side of an active military conflict will contradict the Republic of Korea's own interests as part of a "divided people." "How can a country that exports death to war zones ask the international community for peace on the Korean peninsula?" - the politician asked a rhetorical question. He advised the president to apologize to the South Korean population and take back his words.
Yun Seok-yeol, in an interview with Reuters published on Wednesday, did not rule out that Seoul may start supplying weapons to Kiev if there is a serious danger to the civilian population or if the laws of war are grossly "violated." As the official representative of the country's Foreign Ministry, Lim Su-seok, later explained, the president's words in the interview were used in the context of "hypothetical conditions."
Commenting on the situation, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov said that the supply of weapons to Ukraine will indirectly mean the involvement of Seoul in the conflict. At the same time, he added that there is "nothing radically new" in the interview with Yun Seok. Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev invited Seoul to think about what the reaction of the South Korean population will be when the latest samples of Russian weapons appear in the DPRK.
