The government is hoping to enable memorial tablets of the nation’s patriotic martyrs whose remains have yet to be recovered to be buried next to their spouses in the national cemetery.

According to the veterans ministry on Tuesday, the Cabinet approved the revisions to the national cemetery law enabling the burial or memorial tablets earlier in the day to be submitted to the National Assembly.

Currently, patriots who qualify for burial at the national cemetery but whose remains have not been found can only have their portrait or name tablet enshrined alongside the remains of their spouse, but not buried.

Many of the nation's independence fighters during Japan's colonial rule, however, either died while overseas or their remains proved difficult to locate due to interference and concealment by Japan.

The revision seeks to remedy the problem affecting independence fighters such as Russia-based activist Choi Jae-hyung, who expended all of his personal assets to finance the independence movement and support Korean immigrants in Russia.

Choi’s remains were never recovered following his death at the hands of the Japanese military in 1920 after assisting revered independence fighter Ahn Jung-geun with the assassination of Hirobumi Ito, the Korean Peninsula's first Japanese governor-general.

Source: KBS World Radio