Seoul recalls its ambassador to Ukraine over the disclosure of two North Korean prisoners

South Korea said on Thursday it will recall its ambassador to Ukraine, Park Ki-chang, over President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's public disclosure that two captured North Korean soldiers had been transferred to the South. The foreign ministry did not say when Park will leave Kyiv, or when he might return. The recall follows a threat from President Lee Jae Myung to take unspecified punitive steps if Ukraine does not apologise.

The row started on 23 September, when Zelenskyy told the UN General Assembly that the two prisoners had been sent to South Korea. Seoul says the transfer, made in mid-September, was covered by a non-disclosure agreement, and that Ukraine broke it by speaking. Kyiv says no such agreement existed. The Associated Press reported the denial. A Ukrainian official, quoted by RBC-Ukraine, said diplomacy must prevail over emotions. Neither side has published the text both are arguing about.

The soldiers were part of the North Korean contingent sent to fight with Russia. Thousands of North Korean troops have been deployed on the Russian side of the war. Two of them, captured by Ukraine, are now the subject of a diplomatic fight between Kyiv and a government that has been one of Ukraine's arms suppliers outside NATO. South Korea has sent artillery shells to the United States for onward delivery, and has debated direct lethal aid. A recall does not cancel those contracts. It does pull the ambassador, which is the step a foreign ministry takes when it wants the other capital to notice before it cancels anything.

Lee's threat of further steps is the open end. He has not named them. Trade, shell shipments and intelligence sharing are the levers Seoul actually has. An apology of the kind he asked for would require Zelenskyy to say he disclosed a secret. Zelenskyy used the transfer at the UN as evidence that North Korea is a party to the war. Taking that sentence back would cost him a public exhibit. Keeping it costs him an ambassador. Thursday's recall says Seoul has chosen to charge the second price first.

The prisoners themselves are almost absent from the argument. Their names, ranks and the place they are held have not been published. A transfer of captured enemy soldiers to a third country raises questions under the Geneva Conventions about who is the detaining power and who may prosecute. Those questions are not what Seoul and Kyiv are fighting about. They are fighting about whether the transfer was supposed to stay quiet. If there was an agreement, Ukraine broke it on 23 September. If there was not, Seoul is recalling an ambassador over a disclosure it dislikes but did not bind.

The useful fact for anyone watching the arms relationship is the sequence. Transfer in mid-September. Speech on 23 September. Presidential threat. Ambassador recalled on 8 October, with no date of return. Park Ki-chang is the person who has been the channel. Recalling him pauses the channel. It does not, yet, pause the shells.