Yoon unveils plan to free military-use land as approval tops 40%

Politics

Published: 26 Feb. 2024, 17:34 Updated: 26 Feb. 2024, 17:35

Yoon unveils plan to free military-use land as approval tops 40%

President Yoon Suk Yeol, right, speaks at the 15th public livelihood debate at Seosan Air Base in South Chungcheong, on Monday. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

President Yoon Suk Yeol announced on Monday that the government plans to free up over 80,000 acres of land currently closed off for military purposes during a visit to South Chungcheong to highlight regional development projects.

Speaking at the 15th public livelihood debate at Seosan Air Base, the president said that the decision to lift restrictions on land currently classified as military facility protection areas was made after “considering land usage demand from local residents” and would not affect security.

Yoon said during his speech at the town hall meeting that the government plans to open up approximately 103 million pyeong (84,100 acres) of restricted areas.

The president linked the plan to his administration’s efforts to spur the development of a high-tech industrial zone in South Chungcheong and the growth of its mobility and defense industries.

In a separate announcement Monday, the Defense Ministry said it will free up 339 square kilometers (131 square miles) of military facility protection areas for civilian use in the coming days, marking the most significant change in military-use zoning since 2007.

Currently, around 8 percent of all land in Korea is closed off to civilian use for military purposes.

The areas that the Defense Ministry will release include 287 square kilometers of land around seven military facilities, including Seosan Air Base, 38 square kilometers along the border with North Korea, and a zone in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi, where the land’s classification has hindered the establishment of a new elementary school.

The president’s announcement came on the same day that a poll showed his approval rating exceeding 40 percent for the first time in eight months.

According to the survey Realmeter conducted from Feb. 19 to 23, 41.9 percent of respondents positively rated Yoon’s performance as president, while 54.8 percent viewed his presidency negatively.

The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

The 2.4-percentage point increase in the proportion of respondents who view Yoon’s performance positively follows an ongoing upward trend that Realmeter attributed to the popularity of some of the president’s recently announced policies, including lifting development restrictions on green belt areas outside of the Seoul metropolitan region.

Realmeter also said that public support is growing for the Yoon administration’s proposal to expand the medical school admissions quota by 2,000 students to fill looming shortages in rural areas and essential medical fields, such as high-risk surgeries, pediatrics, obstetrics and emergency medicine.

In a recent Gallup poll, 76 percent of respondents supported the government’s planned expansion of the medical school admissions quota.

In a separate survey on political parties, the conservative People Power Party (PPP) received 43.5 percent support, marking a rise of 4.4 percentage points from the previous week, while the liberal Democratic Party (DP) scored 39.5 support, marking the first time that the DP’s support had fallen below 40 percent since February last year.

That survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]