President Lee Jae-myung said on the 1st that South Korea will "surely succeed in building a nuclear-powered submarine with our own technology by the mid-2030s."
Lee made the remarks at the 78th Armed Forces Day ceremony, held on the runway at Gyeryongdae in South Chungcheong Province, saying that "self-reliant defense is sovereignty itself." He opened his address by referring to a recent incident in the Demilitarized Zone. "When I think of our soldiers who were injured in an unexpected accident in the Demilitarized Zone not long ago, my heart still aches. I wish them a swift recovery," he said.
"Looking back, self-reliant defense has never been the task of any single administration," he continued. "President Park Chung-hee broke ground on the defense industry, saying we should build our own rifles with our own hands." He added, "President Roh Moo-hyun pushed that dream a step further with his commitment to defense reform and wartime operational control. We have come this far carrying that dream of self-reliant defense, passed down through the years."
Lee stressed that "by reclaiming wartime operational control, we will put the final period on that sentence and, together with the people, surely realize the dream that has continued for half a century."
