N Korea confirms troop deployment to Russia

SEOUL, Apr 28 (AFP): North Korea confirmed for the first time it had deployed troops to Russia, with state news agency KCNA on Monday reporting that Pyongyang's soldiers helped Moscow reclaim territory under Ukrainian control in the border region of Kursk.

The admission comes just days after Russia confirmed the North's participation, with South Korean and Western intelligence agencies having long reported that Pyongyang sent more than 10,000 soldiers to help in Kursk last year.

"The sub-units of our armed forces," the North's Central Military Commission said in the KCNA report, had "participated in the operations for liberating the Kursk areas according to the order of the head of state of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea".

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's decision to deploy the troops, it said, was in accordance with a mutual defence treaty.