Clinton, Gates visit Seoul amid tension with North Korea
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates visit Seoul Wednesday in a show of solidarity amid fresh tensions with North Korea over the sinking of South Korean warship. Clinton and Gates are expected to announce joint naval exercises at the meeting with their respective counterparts Yu Myung-hwan and Kim Tae-young on July 21, as Seoul commemorates the 60th anniversary of the start of the Korean War. Tensions from the three-year conflict, from 1950-1953, remain, with the fallout from a March torpedo attack on South Korea’’s Cheonan vessel contributing to a tense environment. A multinational investigation blamed the attack, which killed 46, on North Korea. But the UN Security Council chose not to pin the act on Pyongyang when it condemned the incident last week. The United States responded to the Korean peninsula’’s deadliest incident in decades by standing firmly behind Seoul, and is dispatching Clinton and Gates to announce war games over the strong objections of North Korean ally China. The naval and air drills in the Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea are about “sending a message” to Pyongyang, and will be “a show of force to the North Koreans… (sending) a very strong message of deterrence,” said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell this week in announcing the high-level visit. A senior US defense official said the exercises would last “over a period of months.”
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Clinton, Gates visit Seoul amid tension with North Korea
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