Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin will travel to Afghanistan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) next month to visit South Korean troops stationed there.

A ministry official said Saturday that Kim will be briefed on the situation there and will meet with troops to raise morale.

South Korea dispatched its ”Ashena” unit to Afghanistan last year to protect the country's provincial reconstruction team of civilian aid workers. The contingent, which had been stationed at a U.S. air base in Bagram since June of last year, recently moved to a newly built base.

The “Akh” special forces unit in the UAE, meanwhile, has been dispatched to help train local soldiers there. They arrived there on January eleventh.