Politics

Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez pays respects at Seoul National Cemetery

Seoul, Nov 18 (EFE).- Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez paid his respects and made a floral offering Friday at the National Cemetery of Seoul, where those fallen during the Korean War (1950- 1953) lay, as part of his two-day visit to the country.

Sanchez put on white gloves and walked towards the Hyeonchungtab memorial tower of the cemetery flanked by a South Korean honor guard.

As is the tradition in visits to the cemetery, before reaching the tower, the president stopped halfway to salute the South Korean flag.

Before the tower, where a wreath delivered in the name of the president was placed, Sanchez stopped again to bow, placed incense three times in the censer and observed a minute of silence.

He then signed the cemetery’s book of honor, which houses 165,000 soldiers and policemen who fell in the inter-Korean conflict or the Vietnam War, as well as figures who fought against the Japanese colonization of the Korean peninsula between 1910 and 1945.

In the cemetery, next to the south bank of the Han River, former South Korean presidents such as Rhee Syngman, Park Chung-hee, Kim Young-sam or Kim Dae-jung are also buried.

The visit to the cemetery took place just before Sanchez went to the presidential office in Seoul to meet with his counterpart Yoon Suk-yeol.

Both will make a joint statement, the last act of the prime minister’s visit to the

country, where he also participated in a forum with businessmen Friday in which Lee Jae-yong, president of Samsung Electronics. EFE

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