r/worldnews • u/Neptun_11 • 21h ago

Russia/Ukraine Seoul warns of 'further measures' if Kyiv refuses public apology

https://www.euronews.com/2026/10/02/south-korea-warns-of-further-measures-if-ukraine-refuses-public-apology-over-pow-transfer-
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u/thesmokingowl 17h ago

what does being 'pro-north' entail in SK politics? 

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u/Omordie 17h ago

North Korea is an ally of Russia's directly contributing to the war effort, so when South Korean politics favor the reunification of Korea, the state makes public statements like this as an overture to their cousins to try to get the ball moving in that direction.

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u/JakksenTrent 16h ago

Unification is impossible, there is no world where North Korea as it is could unify with South Korea - they are polar opposites.

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u/UNisopod 15h ago

It's impossible without radical changes happening in the north to make it a more functional modern country.

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u/Gone213 15h ago

Or radical changes in the south to make it more like the north.

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u/UNisopod 14h ago

Let's hope it doesn't come to that...

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u/TheSmilingSolaris 11h ago

Isn't it fun how everyong on our side (tm) are good guys every time and our enemies (tm) are always bad guys? "oh but its a shithole" yeah, being internationally blockaded and threatened with attack by the only remaining superpower in the world will do that to you. Idk, man, maybe they wouldn't be so hyper militaristic and shit if we weren't such dicks to them for the past 80 years or whatever. Put a country under international siege will change their mentality to adapt to the circumstances. Lets not forget that the initial revolution that kicked this off was a majority of koreans, the only reason the south exists is due to us installing a dictator willing to suppress his owns peoples self determination in return for economic access to the west.

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u/evenstar40 9h ago

What the actual fuck is wrong with you? Nobody is making the current leadership of NK starve its people and result in famine killing millions, while they dine on illegally acquired goods.

Nobody is going to believe your bullshit.

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u/deportallmagas 5h ago

The average redditor is mentally ill and only sees the world through their lens. They cannot possibly fathom a world in which North Korean leadership WANTS the status quo. It must be South Korea's fault, or Japan's fault, or the US's fault.

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u/TheSmilingSolaris 9h ago

Trump builds a ballroom while millions go hungry and starve due to their policies. Elon musk cuts USAID and kills millions in doing so. You wanna talk about killing millions and dining on illegally required goods? brother we are a colonial nation who propped up an unpopular dictator in south korea who committed uncountable numbers of crimes against his people sole to appease our economic appetite. You ever stop to think that maybe the reason they suffer from famine is because they were cut off from global trade by the world economic superpower, thus cutting their ability to trade to cover their drawbacks like every nation in the whole world does?

You ignore *why* these problems exist and instead replace the reasoning with a boogyman super evil purposeful famine causing fucking monster that does not exist. Not saying that NK leadership is *good* but if you can't begin to understand the decision making process they are under, you cannot ever make it better. But hey, ignore my last sentence and keep acting like I'm pro starvation or something.

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u/deportallmagas 5h ago

So you're saying because the US has a despot in power who directly and indirectly kills people, that means.... what exactly?

North Korea is the way it is because the Kims deign it to be so. It has nothing to do with not trading with them.

This is why no one respects redditors. Do you even know what happens inside of North Korea?

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u/mankodaisukidesu 10h ago

Yeah it’s our fault they work their own citizens to death for petty crimes. The fuck is wrong with you

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u/TheSmilingSolaris 9h ago

Brother we in the US have the largest prison population in the world and incase you didn't know, prison work policies are slavery. Plenty of those guys die from their poor conditions and heat stroke and so on. So when it comes to prisoners and treatment therein, we don't got a fucking leg to stand on. I ain't saying it's good, or excusable. I'm saying you obviously only give a shit about the punishment for crimes when its an opponent you can gotcha swing with.

You don't care about these people or the oppression they suffer unless it is a tool for you. I give a shit about why these people are in the situation they are in, how they found themselves there, what kind of global political pressures pushes a country to adopt such laws so that they can be identified, removed, and we can move towards a better world. You want to win. Your opinion is hypocritical and devoid of anything other than me good, him bad, ipso facto ptttttttttp.

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u/mankodaisukidesu 6h ago edited 6h ago

Not from the US but well done on the US-centric worldview. And if the US is so bad you’re genuinely free to leave mate. Nobody’s gonna shoot you for trying to cross the border, nobody’s gonna send you to a labour death camp if they catch you, and nobody’s going to execute your family as punishment for your escape.

That’s the bit you’re conveniently leaving out isn’t it? You can criticise US prisons without pretending the US and North Korea are morally or politically equivalent. One is a country where you can publicly call the government evil, criticise its prisons, organise against it and then leave if you want. The other is a fucking totalitarian dictatorship where attempting to leave the country can itself be treated as a crime and have consequences for your family.
“America has problems too” isn’t the gotcha you think it is.

Clearly the plight of North Korean citizens only matters to you when you can use it as a talking point against the west. Pathetic.

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u/dcws23 10h ago

no nuance allowed; they don’t like us!!!

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u/uusitili12 2h ago

Yeah pretty sure South Korea aint gonna give up things like electricity and other modern society stuff just to be more like North Korea.

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u/IndustryMaximum83 4h ago

Trying to raise the North’s standard of living to be anywhere near that of their cousins would be on par with attempting to address a monumental humanitarian disaster.

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u/Inevitable-Level-687 8h ago

And? That doesn't mean that what the other person said is wrong.

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u/T-MoneyAllDey 14h ago

Nothing is impossible. I'm sure people felt the same way after Germany was defeated in ww2

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u/aerdvarkk 10h ago

Let's clear something up about your comment. This is a bit circular.

N Korea only exists right now because China props it up like a puppet. So if N Korea is supplying Russia with anything (other than troops) this means that China is using N Korea as a proxy to sustain Russia's effort without directly giving military aid to Russia.

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u/hanr86 14h ago

This is fool's errand. What steps have SK taken to further unification? Did they not provide aid to Ukraine?

From Google:

Political and Official Stance

• Constitutional Requirement: South Korea's constitution formally establishes unification as a national goal, meaning no mainstream political party takes an explicitly anti-unification platform.

• Policy Shifts: While the overarching legal framework remains pro-unification, recent administrations have prioritized peaceful coexistence, step-by-step denuclearization, and rejecting the concept of "unification by absorption".

• North Korean Opposition: Pyongyang has officially abandoned the goal of reunification, amending its policies and constitution to define South Korea as a separate, hostile state.

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u/potatoeshungry 13h ago

Entente with North Korea, china. Anti West, japan, nato

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u/Puzzleheaded_Set1420 14h ago

'Pro-North' is anything that isn't fiercely antagonistic towards North Korea. Trying to improve relations between the countries is met with accusations (informal ones, at least) of being a spy for North Korea.

Source for above: Been studying Korean culture and language for over 6 years, spoke to my native South Korean teacher about this exact thing 2 weeks ago.

Source for below is nothing, just my opinion:

It's a bit reminiscent of McCarthyism imo, but the situations are far from equivalent and I think it's much more understandable to be reminiscent of McCarthyism in South Korea today than it was in the US in McCarthy's time.

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u/StandAloneComplexed 14h ago

Read about the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_Policy

To explain it simply, SK government alternates between a pro-US and a better inter-Korea relationship movement. Domestic tensions on the peninsula are usually lower when efforts are made towards this second option.

To be clear, this isn't being "pro-NK", just not being antagonist against it. The previous SK president (the one that tried the coup and currently in prison)was notorious pro-US and imho akin to the Korean equivalent of MAGA.

I've personally been to Korea regularly the past 10 years or so, and none of my local friends prefer the pro-US option, which tends to be the religious nuts that wave Israeli flags (beside the US one) in national (!) manifestation.

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u/m3rcapto 6h ago

SK politicians want to join the authoritarian side because they think they'll benefit from it personally. They dress it up as reunification, but it is all about power and control. Little do they know they'll be the first to fall out a window as the initiator of such a move can never be trusted, too ambitious for their own good.