North Korean soldiers said involved in Vietnam war HANOI - North Korean soldiers fought during the Vietnam War on the side of communist North Vietnam, a local official said on Friday, confirming Pyongyang's direct participation in the conflict. The local government official at northern Bac Giang province said North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun had visited a grave containing the bodies of 14 North Korean soldiers during a recent visit to Vietnam. Asked to comment on a report by South Korea's Yonhap News Agency that most of the 14 were fighter pilots, the official said he could only confirm the soldiers had fought in the Vietnam War. South Korea itself sent 300,000 troops to fight for the U.S.-backed South Vietnam against the communist North, but Pyongyang's actual involvement in the war remains murky. Open support of North Vietnam came from the former Soviet Union and China, which kept up a steady supply of weapons. The North Korean foreign minister visited our province and paid homage at the gravesite, the official said by telephone. It's not a newly-found place. We built the grave a long time ago and every year people from the North Korean embassy in Hanoi come here to pay homage to the martyrs, he said. The official said the grave was in Tan Dinh commune, Lang Giang district, some 60 km (37.5 miles) from Hanoi. It was unclear how many North Korean soldiers fought during the decade-long conflict, which ended on April 30, 1975, in victory for Hanoi's communist forces. The official gave no further details and a government official in Hanoi and a diplomat at the North Korean embassy refused to comment. North Korean Foreign Minister Paek's trip to Vietnam during the period from March 25 to 27 was kept under tight wraps by the Vietnamese authorities. Vietnam has good relations with both North and South Korea, which remain technically at war with each other since the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. Reuters, March 31, 2000.