The U.S. Department of Defense confirmed that Pentagon has been negotiating to supply additional artillery shells from South Korea.
U.S. Department of Defense spokesperson Martin Meiners told Voice of America, Tuesday that, “the U.S. government has been in discussions about the potential sales of ammunition to the United States by the Republic of Korea non-government industrial defense base.”
The comments came after Korea’s Ministry of National Defense spokesperson said, “A Korean company is in discussions with the U.S. defense department over exporting ammunition.” He was responding to a question about the ministry’s stance regarding the Ukrainian Ambassador’s recent request for Korea to provide lethal weapons to help in its fight against invading Russian forces.
With the U.S. appearing to make additional purchases for a similar purpose, the U.S. defense department spokesperson did not mention whether the ongoing discussions are related with Ukraine-bound support, Voice of America reported.
“We will not discuss specific numbers or timelines related to production capacity or inventory. We will not discuss specific equipment before it is announced,” Meiners was quoted as saying.
According to recent media reports, the U.S. already imported 120,000 rounds of 155-millimeter shells from Korea in order to make up for the shortage of 155-millimeter ammunition inventory in the U.S. in the wake of its support for Ukraine. At that time, Seoul specified a prerequisite that the end user of the ammunition should be the U.S.