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BRUSSELS: NATO and the European Union are ramping up efforts to persuade China to help get North Korea to stop sending troops and other support to Russia to back its war on Ukraine.
Up to 12,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russia’s Kursk border region to help beat back Ukrainian forces there, according to US, South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence assessments. NATO says Russia is sending missile technology to North Korea in return.
With Russia exploiting its military advantage in Ukraine, the United States wants its allies to exert political pressure on China to rein in North Korea. Since Pyongyang and Beijing established diplomatic ties in 1949, their relationship has been described as being “as close as lips and teeth.”
One political lever is the threat of any increased Western activity in China’s backyard, the Asia-Pacific region. Just last week, the EU sealed security pacts with regional powers Japan and South Korea.
In an opinion piece for Politico last week, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said that “China bears particular responsibility here, to use its influence in Pyongyang and Moscow to ensure they cease these actions. Beijing cannot pretend to promote peace while turning a blind eye to increasing aggression.”
On a visit to Latvia on Thursday, Rutte warned that the exchanges of missile technology in particular pose “a direct threat, not only to Europe, but also to Japan, South Korea and the US mainland.” Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand now regularly attend NATO meetings.
On Wednesday, after talks with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, he also said that “the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific really have to be seen as one theater, and not as two separate ones,” and that “our security, therefore, now more and more is global, and we have to look at this as a global issue.”
While North Korea and Russia have moved significantly closer, many observers say China is reluctant to form a three-way, anti-West alliance with them as it prefers a stable security environment to tackle economic challenges and maintain relationships with Europe and its Asian neighbors.
In a blog published on Thursday, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell detailed his recent trip to Japan and South Korea, where North Korea’s troop deployment and other assistance to Russia was on the agenda.
“This marks an escalation of the utmost seriousness, which was of course at the heart of our discussions with the Japanese and South Korean leaders,” wrote Borrell, who also held talks with Blinken on Wednesday.
Borrell hailed the conclusion during his trip of new security and defense partnerships with Japan and South Korea, “the first ones outside Europe.”
“The EU was certainly not born as a military alliance but, in the current geopolitical context, it can and must also become a global security provider and partner,” he wrote.
Blinken said this week that the Biden administration is determined in its final months to help ensure that Ukraine can keep fighting off the full-scale invasion next year by sending as much aid as possible to hold Russian forces at bay or strengthen its hand in any peace negotiations.

PARIS: A heavy police presence but few visiting fans are expected when France hosts Israel in Nations League soccer on Thursday, a week after violence erupted in Amsterdam in connection with an Israeli club team’s visit.
French police chief Laurent Nuñez said 4,000 police officers and security staff will be deployed around the Stade de France, with another 1,500 police on public transport.
Paris authorities are on high alert following the violence in Amsterdam before and after a Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Dutch authorities say fans from both sides were involved in the unrest. The assaults on Maccabi fans sparked outrage and were widely condemned as antisemitic.
“What we learned from Amsterdam is that we need to be present in the public space including far away from the stadium,” and in public transports before and after the match, Nuñez said Thursday on French news broadcaster France Info.
Three months after hosting the Olympic closing ceremony, the atmosphere has gone from festive to fearful and the national stadium was expected to be three-quarters empty for the match. French President Emmanuel Macron and French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau will be present. Former presidents Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy are also to attend.
Only 20,000 of 80,000 tickets have been sold with around 150 Israel supporters reportedly attending, escorted by police.
“We’ve tried to prepare for this match as normally as possible. But obviously none of us within the team can be insensitive to such a heavy context,” France coach Didier Deschamps said Wednesday. “It impacts the amount of supporters present tomorrow and everything that goes with it.”
The away match against Israel on Oct. 10 — which France won 4-1 — was played in Budapest, Hungary.
“These are situations the players are not accustomed to,” Deschamps said. “But we have to adapt.”
The low number of visiting fans comes after Israel’s National Security Council warned citizens abroad to avoid sports and cultural events, specifically the match in Paris.
Retailleau told French news channel TF1 on Tuesday that no specific threats were identified but “zero risk does not exist.”
Therefore, he said, exceptional measures are in place “before the match, during the match and after the match.”
The elite tactical unit of the French National Police, known as RAID, will be in the stadium and some police will be in plain clothes mingling with fans. There will also be heavy surveillance within Paris, including at Jewish places of worship and schools.
“It is out of the question that we take the risk of seeing a repeat of the dramatic events, of the manhunt, that we saw in Amsterdam,” Retailleau said, adding that postponing or moving the game elsewhere was ruled out.
“France does not submit, and the France-Israel match will take place where it’s supposed to,” he said.
In Amsterdam, a number of Maccabi fans attacked a cab and chanted anti-Arab slogans while some men carried out “hit and run” attacks on people they thought were Jews, according to city Mayor Femke Halsema.
After the match, parts of a large group of Maccabi supporters armed with sticks ran around “destroying things,” a 12-page report on the violence issued by Amsterdam authorities said.
There were also “rioters, moving in small groups, by foot, scooter or car, quickly attacking Maccabi fans before disappearing,” it said.
Protests erupted in Paris on Wednesday night against a controversial gala organized by far-right figures in support of Israel.
The game in Saint-Denis, the suburb north of Paris, is scheduled to kick off at 8:45 p.m. local time (1945 GMT).
A pro-Palestinian demonstration is organized on a Saint-Denis plaza at 6 p.m. local time to protest against the match.
Nine years ago, Stade de France was one of several locations during the Nov. 13 terror attacks in which 130 people died. France was playing Germany that night when two explosions happened outside the stadium.
Deschamps, Germany coach Joachim Löw and all of the players stayed together in the locker rooms for hours until it was safe to leave.
“It’s a sad date for us given what happened in 2015,” Deschamps said.