Bush to Host Lee at Camp David

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and U.S. President George W. Bush will meet at Camp David, a U.S. presidential retreat near Washington, in mid-April.

President Lee and the First Lady will have a private dinner with President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush. Lee will have a summit meeting with the U.S. president after staying overnight at Camp David.

U.S. presidents have held meetings with heads of states at Camp David to express the close relations. This is the first time that a summit meeting between the leaders of South Korea and the United States have been held there. No Korean president has had a private dinner at the presidential retreat. Until now, all Korean presidents have attended official dinners at the White House with their attendants.

One White House source said, “The White House hoped that the two presidents would have a private dinner at Camp David and a press conference the next morning. Cheong Wa Dae accepted this plan.”

“To mark President Lee’s visit, President Bush wants to show that the special and close relationship between the two countries is now entering a new era,” the White House source added.

Like the hospitality the U.S. president showed during his summit with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, which helped restore U.S.-France relations, the White House source explained, “President Bush considers this summit a special event.”

Another diplomatic source said that Bush not only hopes to restore ties between two nations, but also wants to show that Korea has become a very important country to America.

Camp David is a 0.5 square km mountain retreat in the Appalachian Mountains, located 97 km north of Washington, D.C. Camp David was originally built in 1938 as a retreat for federal government employees and their families. In 1942, it was converted into a presidential retreat.

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