Page 231 - 2020 Defence White Paper

Ethiopia in September 2019 and with the Vice Defense Minister of Botswana in
October 2019, and agreed to continue strengthening their cooperation in defense and
the defense industry. In particular, in a situation where troop rotation of the Hanbit
Unit deployed to South Sudan was limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic, troop
rotation was smoothly carried out thanks to active cooperation from Ethiopia such as
opening an airport to facilitate our troop rotation.
The MND will continue its efforts to establish a foundation for cooperation in
defense with major African countries and to discover specific cooperation issues that
can be promoted between the countries.

Non-face-to-face Every country in the world has reinforced their immig-
Defense Diplomacy ration regulations to prevent the spread of COVID-19,
which resulted in many restrictions on mutual visits
between countries for defense diplomacy. Under such circumstances, most major
bilateral and multilateral face-to-face meetings scheduled in 2020 were either
postponed or canceled.
As an alternative to the situation where face-to-face defense diplomacy is limited,
the MND is actively implementing non-face-to-face defense diplomacy by means Chapter 6
of telephone or video conference with major partner countries, and is further
strengthening the activities of ROK defense attachés and foreign defense attachés
stationed in the ROK. Since March 2020, the ROK Minister of National Defense
has held telephone and video talks with the Defense Ministers of the US, China,
India, UAE, Canada, and Estonia, while the ROK Vice Minister of National Defense

with the Vice Defense Ministers of the UK, Vietnam, and New Zealand to share
the experience and know-how gained through the ROK government’s K-quarantine
and the ROK Armed Forces’ response to the pandemic, and to discuss plans for
cooperation in defense and the defense industry.

Defense Diplomacy Marking the 70th Year 2020 marks the 70th anniver-
Anniversary of the Korean War sary of the outbreak of the Korean
War, and the MND carried out and
cooperated on various projects that expressed appreciation for the sacrifices and
dedication of the UN sending states and their veterans.
In June 2020, the ROK Minister of National Defense sent a letter of appreciation
to the Defense Ministers of the countries that sent troops during the Korean War.
In the letter, the Minister expressed his appreciation for the veterans who sacrificed
themselves to safeguard the ROK’s liberal democracy and peace and asked for

Chapter 6. Developing a Robust ROK–US Alliance that is Mutually Complementary and Promoting Defense Exchanges and Cooperation 229