Police Chief Yoon Hee-geun Attending 'Interpol General Assembly' Proposes Hosting 2026 Korea General Assembly

Yoon Hee-geun, Commissioner General of the Korean National Police Agency, attended the 91st Interpol General Assembly held in Vienna, Austria, on the 28th (local time). It has been 18 years since a head of South Korea's police attended the Interpol General Assembly, the last being former Commissioner General Heo Jun-young in 2005.

Yoon Hee-geun, Commissioner of the National Police Agency, attending the opening ceremony of the Interpol General Assembly.
[Photo by National Police Agency]

The Interpol General Assembly is an annual decision-making meeting attended by all member countries of Interpol. Marking the 100th anniversary since the establishment of the International Criminal Police Commission, the predecessor of Interpol, on September 7, 1923, the assembly is being held in Vienna, Austria, the city where it was originally founded.

Commissioner Yoon's attendance at this assembly was aimed at celebrating Interpol's 100th anniversary and informing the Interpol General Secretariat and its 195 member countries that the directions of the 'Proactive Security Strategy in the Era of Hyper-Uncertainty' and the 'Interpol 2030 Future Vision,' declared at the Seoul 'World Police Chiefs Meeting' held on the 18th of last month, are aligned.

In particular, Commissioner Yoon proposed hosting the 2026 Interpol General Assembly during meetings with J?rgen Stock, Interpol Secretary General, and Ahmed Nasser Al Raisi, Interpol President. South Korea previously hosted the 68th Interpol General Assembly in Seoul in 1999. If South Korea successfully hosts the 2026 assembly, 195 member countries will gather in Seoul for the first time in 27 years.

Commissioner Yoon also met with Ham Sang-wook, Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Austria, to discuss cooperation measures for maintaining security for Korean tourists and overseas nationals. Taking the opportunity of his visit to Austria, he held talks with Ghada Waly, Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) based in Vienna, to discuss measures to combat drug-related crimes.

Furthermore, Commissioner Yoon participated as a panelist in a panel discussion themed 'Interpol Vision 2030,' alongside the Interpol Secretary General and police chiefs from Iceland, Chile, and Burkina Faso. He expressed support for activating data diplomacy among member countries and emphasized maintaining 'neutrality' and expanding the 'global network' as core values of Interpol.

Since joining Interpol as a member country in 1964, South Korea has been an important member to this day. The Korean National Police Agency participates in funding projects worth approximately 1.5 billion KRW annually targeting economic crimes and child sexual exploitation crimes. Notably, in the economic crime sector, over three years, 975 economic criminals who fled overseas were apprehended, and 175.5 billion KRW of criminal proceeds were frozen.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.