Defense minister meets military academy alumni but rules out preserving current three-service structure

Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back said Wednesday he had listened to the views of alumni association leaders from the Army, Navy and Air Force academies and would approach the establishment of a unified Korea Armed Forces Academy with an open mind.

However, the Ministry of National Defense drew a line against any suggestion of preserving the existing three separate academies. "It is not true that we are reviewing the current structure," the ministry said. "We will achieve the best possible academy education reform by incorporating various opinions raised, with the establishment of the Korea Armed Forces Academy as the foundation."

Ahn met for about an hour from 3 p.m. Wednesday at the Joint Chiefs of Staff building in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, with Park Pan-jun, president of the Korea Military Academy alumni association, Lee Beom-rim, president of the Korea Naval Academy alumni association, and Hwang Seong-jin, president of the Korea Air Force Academy alumni association, along with the three associations' secretaries-general — six people in total. Kim Hong-cheol, director of the defense policy bureau, and other ministry officials also attended.

The alumni associations offered a different reading of the meeting immediately afterward, saying the minister had expressed a positive view toward "reviewing education reform while maintaining the current Army, Navy and Air Force academy structure as it is" — a characterization at odds with the ministry's position.

The associations presented four demands: a halt to all legislative procedures, budget allocations and unit relocation processes until independent alternative proposals have been compared and verified; a review of alternatives that could achieve the reform's goals while keeping the three existing academies intact; a corrective briefing to address statements made during a previous presidential report that may have misled the public; and a clear ministerial statement on whether the public hearing scheduled for Aug. 26 represents a genuine ground-up review of the need for integration or is merely an administrative formality for implementing a pre-set policy.

The alumni leaders said they had asked the minister to relay the full substance of the discussions to the president without omission, and that he had agreed. They also said they had conveyed the need for a direct meeting with the president going forward.

The Ministry of National Defense is scheduled to hold a public hearing on the establishment of the Korea Armed Forces Academy at the Defense Convention center in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, on the afternoon of Aug. 26.