MOON: “STRONG DEFENSE POWER IS PEACE”

[Anchor Lead]

President Moon Jae-in attended Korea’s largest ever defense contractors exhibit yesterday and emphasized that the goal of strong national defense power is always peace. He was the first Korean president to board a fighter jet and fly in the nation’s airspace.

[Pkg]

President Moon Jae-in boarded the FA-50, the first Korean-made fighter jet. He flew over the Independence Hall of Korea, the Seoul National Cemetery, and the War Memorial of Korea before landing at the Seoul Air Base.

[Soundbite] Moon Jae-in(President) : "For the first time as a South Korean president, I boarded a locally made fighter jet and flew over our country. I was able to experience the greatness of the FA-50 developed using our own technology."

For the first time in four years, President Moon attended Korea’s largest ever defense industry exhibition. He said that Korea was able to become the sixth largest defense exporter in the world by making large investments in the defense industry in step with the era of the fourth industrial revolution. He said that the local spending proportion of the defense capacity improvement cost will be raised to over 80% by 2026 and the subsidy to local parts production will be increased by more than four times. He also emphasized that Korea will develop various aircraft engines on its own by 2030 and focus on obtaining core technologies to become an aerospace powerhouse in line with Korea's home-grown rocket launch.

[Soundbite] Moon Jae-in(President) : "The goal of strong defense is always peace. S. Korea aims to build technology-based forces and bring peace to the world."

However, he did not make any comments about the submarine-launched ballistic missile fired by North Korea on Tuesday. President Moon appears to have stressed peace as the goal of strong defense capability in order to leave an opening for inter-Korean dialogue that could push the Korean peace process forward. It remains to be seen how North Korea reacts to his remarks.