India's first 'Indo-Korean Friendship Park' was jointly inaugurated by South Korea's Minister of National Defence, Suh Wook and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh at Delhi Cantonment today. Located in Delhi Cantonment, the park's significance is not only because of it being a symbol of strong India-South Korea friendly relations, but also as a monument to India’s contributions as part of 21 countries which participated in Korean War (1950-53) under the aegis of the United Nations.

The park has been developed in joint consultation with Ministry of Defence, Government of India, Indian Army, Delhi Cantonment Board, Emabssy of Korea and Korean War Veterans Association of India.

Spread across a green area of six acres, the park includes an entrance gate beautifully made in Korean style signifying the graceful culture, a jogging track, well landscaped garden and an amphitheatre. The park has an imposing handshake artifact standing tall at the entrance bearing flags of India and South Korea which was unveiled by Suh Wook and Rajnath Singh.

The park also has a larger than life statue of General KS Thimayya, a celebrated soldier who led the Indian contingent as Chairman of Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission (NNRC) in Korea headed by India. The commission, through Custodian Force of India (CFI), was responsible for gathering unrepatriated prisoners of war into camps which was also India’s first commitment to a UN assignment after independence.

The five pillars raised in the backdrop of General Thimayya’s statue are embossed with details of operations carried out by 60 Parachute Field Ambulance during the Korean War where they had treated about 1,95,000 cases, and performed about 2,300 field surgeries. One pillar also encompasses Nobel Laureate Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore’s narration of Korea as “The Lamp of the East” which was published in Korean daily “Dong-A-llbo” in 1929.

The ceremony was attended by a delegation from Republic of Korea including the Ambassador of Republic of Korea to India. The attendees also included the Chief of Defence Staff and the three Services Chiefs along with members of Korean War Veterans Association of India.

Later in the day, Singh and Wook successfully concluded their bilateral talks on defence cooperation in the capital. The defence and security engagements between India and RoK have grown exponentially over the last few years. Latest talks explored new domains of bilateral defence cooperation and avenues to strengthen the long-standing bilateral defence partnership.

Both defence ministers acknowledged that the bilateral defence cooperation has broadened significantly in scale and scope across Tri-Service as well as agencies dealing with defence technology and industry. Both the countries have also found common ground on several multilateral fora and engagements.

They exchanged views on the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the defence and security engagements as well as best practices followed by the armed forces of both nations. They also reaffirmed their support to multilateral initiatives to promote lasting peace and stability in the region and beyond. As brought out by Singh, the bilateral relations between both the countries are set to grow further and the meeting between them will give it the necessary impetus to take it to the next level.

The ministers also expressed satisfaction over the commitment exhibited by diverse agencies of both countries to sustain structured annual dialogues at various levels of leadership through virtual means when travel and physical engagements became increasingly challenging during the ongoing pandemic. This has kept up the momentum of bilateral defence engagements. The armed forces of both countries hope to approach 2021 with renewed confidence.

Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Karambir Singh, Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal R K S Bhadauria, Chief of Army Staff General M M Naravane, Secretary (Defence Production) Raj Kumar and Secretary Department of Defence R&D and Chairman Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) Dr G Satheesh Reddy formed part of the Indian delegation during the talks.