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Foreign Minister Ban Ban Ki-Moon said Thursday that there's general agreement between Korea and the U.S. that Camp Coiner is a worthwhile spot to consider as a site on which the U.S. Embassy could be rebuilt. He said we could think of the issue of swapping Camp Coiner for the Deoksu Palace site and the Songhyeon-dong site once the Cultural Properties Committee makes a decision about the Doeksu Palace site.
At a press conference at the foreign ministry's headquarters, Ban said about the U.S. Embassy move that, "When U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney visited Korean last month, the U.S. side brought up the issue first during a meeting with acting President Goh Kun... If rebuilding the embassy within the old grounds of the Deoksu Palace should prove difficult, the Camp Coiner site in Yongsan is seen as a strong replacement candidate, and are respective positions are being confirmed in bilateral working group discussions."
About the possibility of USFK being sent to Iraq, Ban said, "Until now, there have been no discussions of USFK being deployed anywhere else abroad¡¦ U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in a May 5 interview that 'in certain cases, we may take measures take measures at a level that would never weaken U.S. military deterrence in the relevant regions.'"
About the attempted landing on Dokdo by a Japanese extreme right wing group, Ban said, "We think it regretful that certain Japanese extreme right wing groups and the Japanese government are raising the Dokdo issue."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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