South Korean President Lee Jae-myung called for renewed dialogue with North Korea at the Armed Forces Day ceremony while pressing his own military’s reform agenda. He promised practical tension-reduction measures and set objectives for wartime operational control, advanced technology and personnel conditions. His appeal combined rebuilding inter-Korean trust with constitutional loyalty and political neutrality in the armed forces.
South Korean President Lee Jae-myung called on North Korea to rebuild trust and resume interrupted dialogue at the 78th Armed Forces Day ceremony. The event took place at the Gyeryongdae military complex in South Chungcheong Province, South Korea. Lee said practical measures to reduce military tensions would continue and urged the North to participate. Trust, he argued, requires words and actions to align over time.[1], [2]
Lee also set objectives for strengthening South Korea’s defence capacity. These include regaining wartime operational control—the authority to direct military operations during war—and restructuring the armed forces into a more advanced elite force. He advocated greater integration of artificial intelligence and unmanned systems into the military. The address presented these reforms as objectives still to be achieved.[1]
The president emphasised the military’s constitutional loyalty and political neutrality, alongside institutional measures to prevent another illegal martial-law episode. He described protecting citizens’ lives and safety as the armed forces’ basic mission and proposed better personnel conditions and pay for junior ranks. In the same speech, Lee also expressed sorrow for soldiers injured in the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas, without directly blaming North Korea for that incident in this speech.[1]
