Protection Minister Ahn Gyu-back speaks throughout a gathering of key navy commanders on the protection ministry in Seoul, Wednesday. Courtesy of Ministry of Nationwide Protection
Protection Minister Ahn Gyu-back on Wednesday presided over a gathering of key commanders and urged the navy to attempt to defend constitutional values, a yr after the failed martial regulation bid that concerned the previous protection minister and a slew of navy high brass.
The assembly comes a day after Ahn issued an apology over the navy’s involvement in former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived martial regulation bid on Dec. 3 final yr, when troops had been deployed to the Nationwide Meeting to dam lawmakers from voting down the decree.
“The perspective of general-level officers who took half within the revolt, who couldn’t discern an unconstitutional order and easily mentioned they adopted the orders, made the folks view the navy coldly. Our navy ought to take this closely to coronary heart,” Ahn mentioned in the course of the assembly attended by some 150 key navy officers.
High generals appointed by Yoon, together with former Military Chief of Workers Gen. Park An-su, who served because the martial regulation commander and former head of the Protection Counterintelligence Command, Lt. Gen. Yeo In-hyung, are at present beneath trial for enjoying a key position within the revolt.
Following his appointment because the nation’s first civilian protection chief in 64 years, Ahn, a five-term lawmaker, pledged to rebuild the navy into one for the folks and break from the previous during which the navy was “wasted as a instrument for emergency martial regulation.”
In his opening remarks, Ahn mentioned the navy faces what he referred to as a check of survival amid North Korea’s continued nuclear and missile developments and hostile coverage in opposition to South Korea, in addition to an intensifying Sino-U.S. rivalry within the Indo-Pacific area.
The protection chief additionally pressured the necessity to restructure the navy by 2040 to higher adapt to altering tendencies in warfare and the nation’s dwindling troop assets.
Members mentioned using synthetic intelligence-based applied sciences and unmanned property for surveillance operations and increasing the civilian workforce as a part of such efforts.
Alongside inner points, Ahn reaffirmed South Korea’s push to regain wartime operational management from the USA inside President Lee Jae Myung’s five-year time period that ends in 2030.
“The transition of wartime operational management will transcend the realm of a self-reliant protection and develop into a driving pressure and a strong cornerstone supporting the peace and stability of the Indo-Pacific area,” Ahn mentioned. “I firmly consider we’re already ready.”
Within the allies’ annual safety assembly held final month, Ahn and U.S. Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth shared the view that there was significant progress made throughout their bilateral analysis on readiness posture and capabilities, and agreed to develop a highway map to amass the capabilities to expedite the situations wanted for the transition.
Throughout Wednesday’s assembly, contributors famous that subsequent yr can be a “watershed” for the transition push and exchanged opinions on the highway map, along side mixed drills carried out by the allies, in keeping with the ministry.
The protection chiefs of South Korea and the U.S. have agreed to pursue the certification of full operational functionality of the Future-Mixed Forces Command headquarters in 2026 in the course of the protection talks in November.
