The South Korean government has decided to allow, for the first time in seven years, Christmas lights to be erected on a hill just three kilometers away from the border with North Korea.
One of the biggest churches in the world, Yoido Full Gospel Church, will erect the lights on a 155m hill called Aegibong just outside Gimpo, a city northwest of Seoul, to be switched on around December 21st.
According to a Ministry of Defense official, who confirmed the news today, “Earlier this month, Yoido Full Gospel Church asked us if they could set up Christmas lanterns on the steel tower on Aegibong and we decided to allow it.”
“As we have resumed psychological warfare since the North’s attack on the Cheonan, there is no reason to block a religious group from turning on Christmas lanterns there,” the ministry official pointed out.
The lights originally went dark in 2004, at a time when the previous Roh Moo Hyun administration was attempting to warm relations with the North.
