President Lee Jae Myung paid tribute at the Korean War Memorial in Ankara on Tuesday and met with Turkish veterans who fought in the 1950–53 conflict, honoring their service and sacrifice.
Lee laid a wreath of red and blue flowers — the colors of the South Korean national flag — at the memorial and observed a moment of silence, accompanied by first lady Kim Hea Kyung.
Four surviving Turkish veterans and 13 family members of fallen service members attended the ceremony.
Turkey dispatched more than 21,000 troops to the 1950-53 Korean War to fight alongside the United Nations forces, making it the fourth-largest contributor after the United States, Britain and Canada.
Lee described Turkey as a “brotherly nation” during his summit with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday, noting that Turkey sent troops to South Korea even before the two countries established diplomatic relations.
During the summit, the two nations signed a memorandum of understanding to support Turkish Korean War veterans and to promote exchanges between veterans’ associations and descendants of veterans from both countries. (Yonhap)
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