Park delivers pep talk to S. Korean troops in UAE

President Park Geun-hye met with hundreds of South Korean troops in the United Arab Emirates on Friday to boost their morale on the third and last day of her visit to the wealthy Gulf state.

"I am overwhelmed to see our troops in the UAE," Park, wearing a Navy jacket, said in a meeting with about 200 soldiers aboard the Dae Jo Yeong, a 4,400-ton South Korean destroyer, anchored at Zayed Port in the heart of the UAE capital.

Park -- the first commander-in-chief to visit a South Korean warship deployed abroad -- asked the troops to carry out their missions with responsibility and a sense of pride.

The soldiers are composed of the Cheonghae unit as well as the "Ahk" unit.

The Cheonghae unit has been operating near Somali waters since early 2009 as part of international efforts to help protect ships passing through the Gulf of Aden, also used by some 500 South Korean vessels annually.

In 2012, Navy commandos from the Cheonghae unit raided a South Korean freighter that had been hijacked by Somali pirates in the Arabian Sea, rescuing all 21 crew members and killing eight pirates.

The UAE is home to some 150-strong South Korean troops charged with training UAE special forces and conducting joint military drills. Their unit is known as "Ahk," an Arabic word meaning "brother."

It is the second time that Park has given a pep talk to the Ahk unit in less than a year.

She met about 10 soldiers of the Ahk unit in May when she visited the UAE to attend a ceremony marking the installation of a Korean-built nuclear reactor at a power plant under construction in Barakah, some 300 kilometers west of Abu Dhabi.

It is the first out of four reactors South Korea plans to provide the UAE under a 2009 deal worth US$20.4 billion that marked South Korea's first export of nuclear reactors.

On Thursday, Park met with the Abu Dhabi crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and said the construction of a nuclear power plant "has become a good starting point for the two countries to welcome the next hundred years," according to Park's office.

Also Friday, Park met with about 30 South Korean doctors and nurses working in four hospitals in the UAE.

Health care has emerged as a new promising area of cooperation between South Korea and the Middle Eastern countries. A health promotion center managed by Seoul's St. Mary's Hospital opened downtown in the oil-rich capital of Abu Dhabi earlier in the day.

The move came weeks after the Sheikh Khalifa Specialist Hospital opened in the UAE under a consignment deal with Seoul National University Hospital, one of South Korea's top medical centers.

Mohammed bin Zayed told Park that he trusts South Korea in the health care sector and said he would be pleased if more South Korean doctors and nurses come to his Gulf state.

More than 1,150 UAE nationals came to South Korea for medical treatments in 2013, costing the wealthy Gulf state US$18 million, according to South Korean data.

Later in the day, Park plans to fly to Qatar, the last stop on her four-nation swing that also included Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. (Yonhap)