Ambassador Yang conveys regret

Korean ambassador to Washington Yang Sung-Chul expressed regret for raising concerns by making inadvertent remarks on the proposed revision of the Korea-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement and the Nogeun-ri incident. The statements were misinterpreted far from his intended meaning, Yang said Monday in Washington.

"I think it regrettable that my interview with some local (Korean) reporters raised some disturbing waves even if it was misquoted," he told Korean correspondents there.

He said he was sorry for whatever the impacts might have been.

Declaring the Seoul government's plan to include environmental considerations, labor relations and quarantine procedures in the forthcoming SOFA, the ambassador explained that a casual reference to a joint statement issued on environmental concerns during a U.S.-Japan security forum held in New York recently was misrepresented as a reference to the Korean-American defense treaty.