“Korea-U.S. Alliance Is the Basis of National Security”

“The Korea-U.S. alliance is the basis of our national security. We will keep the same policy,” said Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Kwon Jin-ho on a KBS radio program on February 2.

Kwon also said that “the friendship between Korea and the U.S. will go on in the twenty-first century. My partner, White House National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, esteems each other’s value and necessity by saying that there’s no alliance better than that of Korea and the U.S.” About the conflict between the so-called “Independence Party” and the “Alliance Party,” he said that “the press seems to have created those parties. They are meaningless. Independence and alliance have to be balanced.”

Deputy National Security Advisor Lee Jong-suk asserted at a meeting with journalists that “both independent and allied foreign policies are important. They have to be balanced and supplemental to each other. It is practical diplomacy that we are pursuing. If you regard independence as anti-American, you undervalue it, defame the national interest, and distort Korean-American relations.”

Jeong-Hun Kim jnghn@donga.com