ANKARA

Seoul on Saturday said South Korea, the US, and Japan hope that China will play a constructive role in the face of recent military cooperation between Russia and North Korea.

An official at Seoul's presidential office said they expect China to take a positive role to help address Seoul and its allies’ concerns over deepening military alignment between Moscow and Pyongyang, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

"We can assume that China might feel uneasy about (the North's) deployment, which is the most serious level of (military) cooperation (between Pyongyang and Moscow)," the agency quoted the unnamed official as saying, referring to North Korea reportedly sending troops to fight on Russia’s side in the Ukraine war.

"South Korea, the U.S. and Japan hope that China will play a constructive role regarding such illegal acts by North Korea and Russia," he added.

On Friday South Korea's National Security Adviser Shin Won-sik and his US and Japanese counterparts, Jake Sullivan and Takeo Akiba, held a trilateral meeting in Washington to discuss the North's troop deployment and other issues.

On Friday, in its first response to claims by Seoul and Washington that Pyongyang sent some 3,000 troops to support Moscow, North Korea said that any deployment of its soldiers to Russia would be in line with international law.

Ukrainian military intelligence also said North Korean military units have been deployed to Kursk, a border region of Russia under attack by Ukraine.

*Writing by Islamuddin Sajid