Meeting With Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Jae-shin of Republic of Korea

Meeting With Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Jae-shin of Republic of Korea

Remarks
Kurt M. Campbell
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs
Seoul, South Korea

March 12, 2011

DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER KIM: First of all, welcome back [Assistant Secretary] Campbell and other U.S. friends to meet with Korea this time. And as you see there are a few journalists also welcoming you here, your visit. And after this meeting we will have a brief press availability, but I think they are expecting some words from you, or else they won’t go out of this room. (laughter) If you could give your remarks.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Thank you very much, Minister. I really am very grateful that you have taken the time out of your busy schedule to meet Ambassador Stephens and myself and our visiting delegation. I think we have to start, just to spend a moment and pass on our very deep concern from both the governments of Korea and the United States about the tragic developments that have taken place in Japan. And we are closely coordinating between our two sides to make sure that everything we can do to address this, really horrific humanitarian disaster in Japan, we will do so. I also wanted to convey an invitation to come visit us in Washington. We have not seen you in Washington in a while. We would love to have a chance to entertain you and have discussions and dialogue with you in your new capacity. It is also the case that we had a very good meeting with Ambassador Wi, and we clearly underscored the extraordinarily tight coordination that is taking place between the United States and South Korea. And I think we are completely in alignment in terms of our mutual strategies with respect to North Korea. So, I look forward to our discussions with you, and I think we will have more to say to you in a few minutes.