Seoul: Veterans Minister Kwon Oh-eul emphasized the importance of strengthening veterans affairs to advance South Korea's alliance with the United States and ties with countries that sent troops and provided medical support during the 1950-53 Korean War.
According to Yonhap News Agency, Kwon, who was appointed as the first veterans minister of the Lee Jae Myung government in July, departed for Washington just hours after his inauguration to attend a ceremony commemorating the 72nd anniversary of the armistice that ended the three-year conflict. In the ceremony held at the Korean War Veterans Memorial, he delivered a message on behalf of Lee vowing to strengthen the "blood-forged" alliance between South Korea and the U.S. across a broad spectrum of areas encompassing politics, the economy, security, and culture.
"While the veterans ministry did not directly handle tariff negotiations, I made the visit immediately after taking my post upon receiving a suggestion on creating a favorable mood for talks," Kwon said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency. Kwon noted how participants welcomed Lee's message reaffirming the alliance and how Douglas Collins, U.S. secretary of veterans affairs, stressed that nothing should test the 75-year alliance.
The veterans minister, whose U.S. visit involved meetings with former U.S. generals stationed in South Korea, also mentioned the potential role that the tens of thousands of troops who have served in South Korea as part of the U.S. Forces Korea could play in advancing ties between the two nations. Alongside the U.S., Kwon pledged to review ways to enhance support for the 16 nations that deployed combat troops and six other nations that provided medical assistance to the Korean Peninsula during the Korean War.
"We need to assess ways we can help enhance our mutual national interest through veterans affairs. We need to see what kind of support could be provided to countries that are comparatively vulnerable compared to South Korea in terms of economic growth," Kwon said. As part of such global outreach, Kwon said the ministry is open to holding another meeting of veterans ministers of U.N. Command member states following the first such meeting held in the country in 2023 on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the armistice.
On the domestic front, Lee called for increasing the budget for veterans affairs to 1 percent of the total national budget to better carry out Lee's pledge to give "extraordinary compensation and honor" to those who sacrificed themselves to protect the nation and its people. As part of the initiative, Kwon vowed to push for the swift enactment of a long-stalled law aimed at honoring unrecognized activists who sacrificed themselves for democracy movements such as the June 10 pro-democracy uprising in 1987.
The law, which seeks to honor activists who are not recognized by existing laws on democracy movements, has faced opposition for years over the scope of compensation and standard for selecting recipients to be designated as people of merit. The conservative bloc raised concerns that pro-democracy activists who violated the National Security Act could be included among them. "Once the law is enacted, the ruling and opposition parties can go through the controversial cases one by one. Delaying the legislation due to a failure to reach a parliamentary consensus would be a dereliction of duty," Kwon said.
The minister said he will also push to bring the remains of independence fighters, including Ahn Jung-geun (1879-1910), back to their homeland. The remains of more than 200 activists remain overseas. Ahn shot and killed Ito Hirobumi, Japan's first prime minister and resident-general of Korea, in 1909, at Harbin Station in northern China in the months leading up to Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of Korea. Five months after the assassination, he was executed at the age of 31.
In the case of Ahn, whose remains are presumed to be in China, Kwon stressed the importance of building favorable ties with relevant nations. "We need cooperation from North Korea, China and Japan," noting how Ahn was born in what's now North Korea, but is assumed to be buried in China, while relevant historical documents are believed to be in Japan.