President Lee Myung-bak waves during the 64th graduation ceremony of the South Korean military academy at its ground Hwangrangdae in Seoul on Tuesday. /AP

Lee made the remarks to Foreign Ministry officials at a ministry policy briefing. "If their national interests are matched, both nations can become allies. But if there is a clash of national interests, there is no alliance,” he said. "Of course, we should maintain a solid alliance with the U.S. But the U.S. would not want to maintain an alliance with South Korea if the alliance clashes with its own national interest."

Lee criticized the way ties with the U.S. and Japan have been handled. "If we look back on what our country has done in regional and multilateral cooperation, we can see that we have conducted diplomacy that is incompatible with the trends of the 21st century,” he said. “The Foreign Ministry has played a central role in doing that.” He added that “I am not merely dissatisfied with the ministry's performance; it is worse than that. Let me make it clear that I have complaints about what the ministry has done so far."

Lee called for a revival of shuttle summit diplomacy with Japan, which Korea has suspended over Japanese claims to Korea’s Dokdo islets and the visits of Japanese leaders to the militarist Yasukuni Shrine. By the same token, “there is no reason to avoid shuttle diplomacy with North Korea. The inter-Korean summit should not be a one-off event during the term of the incumbent South Korean president. We should meet as often as possible."

Tuesday’s remarks were more forceful tone than in his inaugural address, when he called for “talks with open hearts any time" with the North Korean leader.

The Foreign Ministry promised to prioritize the “restoration” of Seoul-Washington ties. This was the first time the ministry has formally used the term. Deputy Foreign Minister Shim Yoon-joe said Korea-U.S. relations in the past years have been “somewhat unsatisfactory.”

(englishnews@chosun.com )