U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday reaffirmed Washington's commitment to peace on the Korean Peninsula and to a strong U.S.-South Korea military alliance.
"All of us look to the day when the light of freedom and progress covers all of Korea and stability on the Korean Peninsula rests on the foundation of peaceful reconciliation," he said in his speech at a ceremony marking the 53rd anniversary of the Korean War Veterans Armistice Day.
"Until then, stability and peace will be maintained by our great military alliance," he said.
American troops proudly serve in Korea today, the vice president said, "We will maintain our presence there."
"America's commitment to peace in the region and the security of our friends is unbreakable."
July 27 marks the day the 1950-1953 Korean War ended with an armistice agreement signed by North Korea, China and the United States who signed on behalf of the United Nations. South and North Korea are technically still at war, not having signed a peace treaty.
Some 30,000 American troops are stationed in South Korea as a deterrence against the North.
Describing North Korea, Cheney called it a "scene of merciless repression, chronic scarcity, mass starvation with political prisoners kept in camps the size of major cities."
Cheney, who for the first time made a speech at the annual ceremony, said the Korean War was to "halt the advance of totalitarian ideology," a battle to determine "whether the rule of men who shoot their prisoners, enslave their citizens and deride the dignity of men will displace the rule of those whom the individuals and individual rights are sacred."
Yet, the soldiers who fought the war have seldom received the attention they deserve, Cheney said.
But the U.S. will remember the veterans, including some 8,000 American soldiers unaccounted for from the war, he said. "And this nation will persist in the effort to gain a full accounting for every last one of them."
South Korean envoy to Washington Lee Tae-sik, calling North Korea's nuclear and missile issues "serious and principle stumbling blocks," urged patience and combined wisdom among allies to resolve them.
"I believe there is a fair chance to resolve the North Korean problem as a whole," he said in his speech.
Emphasizing the importance of the Seoul-Washington alliance, the ambassador said it is as critical today as when it was established 53 years ago.
"(The) U.S.-ROK (South Korea) alliance is no fair-weathered friendship, forged in (the) heat of battle, tempered in the tension of the Cold War, and fortified by our common values and interest," Amb. Lee said.
"Ours is an alliance built to endure."
Meanwhile, Washington D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams pronounced July 27 as the Korean War Veterans Armistice Day for the U.S. capital.
Washington, July 27 (Yonhap News)
U.S. commitment to S. Korean peace unbreakable: V.P. Cheney |
