Buyang Group chairman pledges UN headquarters-level building in Seoul if UN Day becomes national holiday

Lee Joong-keun, president of the Korea UN Association and chairman of Buyang Group, has proposed constructing and donating a UN headquarters-level building in Seoul if UN Day is designated a national holiday.

Speaking at the 81st UN Day ceremony held Friday at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building in Seoul — co-hosted by the Korea UN Association and the Foreign Ministry — Lee proposed that UN Day be made a national holiday "to express gratitude to the UN, which helped make South Korea one of the world's top 10 economies, and to give future generations an opportunity to strengthen diplomatic ties with the 60 countries that participated in the war." He added that if the holiday is designated, he would personally build and donate a building in Seoul comparable to the UN headquarters in New York and work to attract UN agencies to the city.

Foreign Minister Cho Hyun was among those who attended the ceremony alongside Lee.

Lee has a history of supporting UN-related causes in South Korea. In 2015, he funded the construction of a memorial to UN war veterans at the War Memorial of Korea in Yongsan-gu. Last year, he delivered to the National Assembly a petition signed by 420,000 people supporting a bill to designate UN Day as a national holiday.

UN Day marks the founding of the United Nations on Oct. 24, 1945, with the goal of promoting international peace and security. In South Korea, the day was once a public holiday but lost that status in 1976.