On March 15, President Lee Jae-myung described the return of South Koreans who had been stranded in the Middle East aboard government-arranged military transports as “a meaningful achievement realized through whole-of-government, one-team cooperation.”
That day he posted on X (formerly Twitter), “Recently, 204 of our citizens who had been isolated by the situation in the Middle East safely returned on military transport planes. This is welcome news.”
He said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of National Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Air Force and South Korean embassies in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Lebanon — along with the government’s joint rapid response team and the National Police Agency — all joined forces. “I thank everyone who worked day and night under difficult conditions to ensure the operation’s success,” he added.
“I offer my deepest respect for your hard work and dedication. You all worked very hard,” he wrote.
Under the government’s “Desert Light” evacuation operation, authorities flew 204 South Korean citizens, five family members with foreign nationality and two Japanese nationals — 211 people in total — into Seoul Airport in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province on military transport.
The Democratic Party said the “Desert Light” operation demonstrated the state’s responsibility to protect its citizens during a crisis.
Senior party deputy spokesperson Park Chang-jin said in a statement that conducting the evacuation as military tensions in the Middle East spiked showed the Lee Jae-myung administration was fulfilling its most basic duty: protecting its people.
Park added that deploying an Air Force transport to bring about 200 citizens safely home from Riyadh highlighted that the state was responding responsibly to safeguard lives even amid an emergency.
He warned that, with global uncertainty on the rise, protecting South Koreans abroad is increasingly important and urged the government to continue monitoring the safety of both those who returned and those still overseas, and to take any necessary measures.
