Thank you. Well, I’ve had some very good meetings today, and I want to begin by saying that the best meeting I had, I had last night with my good friend, Ambassador Mark Lippert. I’m very proud to call him a friend and a colleague. We think that his bravery under fire, his courage and his steadiness, reflected the best of the United States. We also think that his deep affection and respect for Korea has shone through brightly throughout this crisis. By the same token, the tremendous warmth and the outpouring of sympathy and support, for Ambassador Lippert, for his family, for the U.S. Embassy throughout this affair has given a vivid demonstration of the strength of the U.S.-R.O.K. alliance and the depth of the friendship between the American and Korean people. So, I am proud of Ambassador Lippert and I am proud that the President selected him to represent the United States here in Korea.
Now over the course of the day I’ve had the opportunity to discuss a number of issues with both Foreign Ministry and Blue House colleagues. High on my agenda is the planning for the planned visit to the United States by President Park and a series of high-level engagements between our officials in the run up to that. We were able today to discuss a range of bilateral issues both on security and the strategic side, but also on the economic and people-to-people side. I can attest that our alliance is in very solid shape and our agenda going forward is a positive one.
More broadly, picking up on the very successful visit to Seoul by President Obama last April, we have seen and are proud of a tremendous degree of cooperation and progress on a range of global issues. We are working together to address transnational threats such as Ebola and other pandemics. We’re working together on climate change and the environment and clean energy, and we’re working together to address the threat and the scourge of ISIL and radical extremism. We’re also working on a regional basis with respect to Northeast Asia, and I note with interest that my friend and colleague Liu Jianchao from China and Mr. Ihara from Japan are also here in Korea today. It’s significant that the diplomatic world is now congregating in Seoul where there is a lot of good business to be done. But we also talked about the agenda more broadly in the region including with respect to ASEAN and the East Asia summit.
Lastly, let me just say that I expressed my strong appreciation to the Korean government for the very serious way that they are handling both the investigation into the attack on Ambassador Lippert and the serious way in which they are addressing the security needs of American citizens and of our Embassy writ large. I have received good assurances of continued close cooperation and believe that we can count on the Korean authorities to continue to ensure that this isolated issue is handled in a way consistent with justice and will leave no negative impact on our very healthy bilateral relations.
On February 25th, the Honorable Han Sung Joo met with senior policy analysts and the senior leadership of The Korea Society for a private roundtable discussion, North Korea Policy: Issues and Dilemmas. After the discussion, the ROK Ambassador to the United Nations, Ambassador Oh Joon hosted a private dinner in honor of Ambassador Han.
Harvard Belfer Center’s John Park, one of the nation’s most eminent Korea analysts