With these words, Sigbjørn Tenfjord, Chargé d’affairs of the Norwegian Embassy, opened his speech on 24 October at the United Nation Memorial Cemetery in Korea, focusing on the sacrifice that was made by the brave men and women who fought in the war, and who made the Korea we live in today possible.
From 1 November 2010 to 1 November 2011, Norway had the chairmanship of the Commission of the cemetery. The commission is the cemetery’s governing body and is composed of the 11 UN countries whose countrymen rest in the cemetery.
The cemetery, which is located in Busan, was formally established as a UN cemetery in 1955 after UN forces had used the area to bury fallen soldiers from April 1951. It remains the only cemetery in the world under the name of the United Nations. At the request of the survivors, the majority of the bodies eventually were repatriated for burial in their home countries, however, still over 2,300 people are buried in the cemetery, including a Norwegian, engineer Reidar George Tveit.
On 10 May 2007, TRH the Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Norway visited the cemetery and unveiled a memorial for the fallen Norwegians.