South Korea looks to transform veterans cemetery into global destination

SEOUL, July 25 (UPI) -- South Korea is aiming to transform the country's largest veterans cemetery into an international memorial site and tourism destination, officials said Thursday.

Seoul National Cemetery, which houses the remains of nearly 200,000 soldiers and members of the country's independence and democracy movements, was handed over to the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs this week after being managed by the military since its establishment in 1955.

The ministry aims to "recreate it as a symbolic space for the heroes who dedicated themselves to protecting our liberal democracy, ensuring it firmly establishes itself among the people," Veterans Minister Kang Jung-ai said in a ceremony marking the transfer Thursday.

"It will be reborn as the world's best memorial space and a cultural space that people will enjoy visiting all year round," she said. "If the United States has Arlington National Cemetery , we can proudly say that the Republic of Korea has the Seoul National Cemetery."

In March, the ministry began a research and planning phase for transforming the cemetery, which covers 35,000 acres in a prime area of the city near the Han River.

"Although it occupies a significant green space in downtown Seoul, its utilization is low," Jin Ji-hye, the ministry's director of national cemetery policy, said Wednesday during a site visit by reporters.

The cemetery "lacks distinctive symbols for year-round commemorations and must-visit attractions for both domestic and international visitors like the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, and so we are trying to install such facilities," she said.

Other planned upgrades include an eternal flame and amphitheater along with a comprehensive trail network.

In addition to attracting local visitors, the ministry is looking to boost what it calls "veteran diplomacy" by expanding sponsored visits and exchanges with foreign veterans. Twenty-two countries participated in the 1950-1953 Korean War under the U.S.-led United Nations Command.

The ministry will start soliciting bids for the construction phase of the project next year and the overall timeline will be at least five years, with a first phase to be completed by 2027, spokesman Kim Ju-yong told UPI.

Kim said that the cemetery currently attracts one million visitors a year, but the ministry is hoping to raise that figure to five million visitors after the reconstruction project is finished.

In addition to soldiers and martyrs, four presidents are also buried at the cemetery: Syngman Rhee, Park Chung-hee, Kim Young -sam and Kim Dae -jung, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000.

The Korean War left millions dead, including some 160,000 South Korean soldiers. The more than 36,000 U.S. soldiers who died in the conflict are memorialized at the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. In 2022, the memorial added a new Wall of Remembrance engraved with the soldiers' names.