Congratulations to President-elect Park Geun-hye and the Korean People

[성김 대사]

Congratulations to President-elect Park Geun-hye, who was chosen by the Korean people to be the 18th president of the Republic of Korea.  I have just made my first call on the President-elect and very much look forward to working closely with her administration to further enhance our close, constructive, and deep cooperation with the Republic of Korea.  As President Obama noted in his congratulatory message “The U.S.-ROK alliance serves as a lynchpin of peace and security in the Asia Pacific and our two nations share a global partnership with deep economic, security, and people-to-people ties.”  And as partners, we are fully committed to cooperating closely on a range of important bilateral, regional, and global issues.     

A courtesy call on the President-elect Park Geun-hye

I also would like to extend my warm congratulations to the Korean people.  From the rallies to the debates to the high voter turnout on Election Day, it was truly exciting to witness Korea’s democracy in action again. 

The alliance between our strong democracies is strong and deep.  Our two countries have accomplished much together, including a strong alliance that has broad support across the political spectrum in both countries, passage of the historic Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, growing cooperation on a host of global issues from international aid and development to nonproliferation to green growth, as well as close coordination on North Korea issues.  In 2013, we will celebrate 60 years of partnership and shared prosperity as we mark the anniversary of our mutual defense treaty, the foundation of our alliance.  As I look forward to what we can accomplish together next, I believe our goals for the future are only limited by our imagination.