U.S. to Expand Security Role in Pacific Region

WASHINGTON, March 26, 2012 — Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma today reaf­firmed the U.S. inten­tion to take a larg­er role in the future of secu­ri­ty in the Asia-Pacif­ic region.

Dur­ing a news con­fer­ence with South Kore­an Pres­i­dent Lee Myung-bak in con­junc­tion with the Nuclear Secu­ri­ty Sum­mit in South Korea’s cap­i­tal of Seoul, Oba­ma talked about upcom­ing plans for the Asia-Pacif­ic region. 

“My vis­it to Korea reflects the fact that the Unit­ed States is lead­ing again in the Asia-Pacif­ic — a region that will affect Amer­i­can secu­ri­ty and pros­per­i­ty in the 21st cen­tu­ry like no oth­er,” he said. 

The pres­i­dent not­ed that in a Novem­ber speech to the Aus­tralian par­lia­ment, he said the Unit­ed States, as a Pacif­ic nation, will play a larg­er and long-term role in shap­ing the region and its future. “And the cor­ner­stone of our efforts is our strong alliances, includ­ing our alliance with the Repub­lic of Korea,” he added. 

Oba­ma said South Korea is on track to assume oper­a­tional con­trol on the Kore­an penin­su­la for the alliance in 2015. 

“We reviewed our ongo­ing efforts to mod­ern­ize our secu­ri­ty alliance,” he said. “We agreed to have our for­eign and defense min­is­ters meet in June to dis­cuss con­crete mea­sures we can take to con­tin­ue strength­en­ing that alliance.” 

Oba­ma also said he and Lee dis­cussed the future in light of fis­cal con­straints that will reduce U.S. defense spending. 

“I reaf­firmed, as I said in Aus­tralia, that reduc­tions in U.S. defense spend­ing will not come at the expense of the Asia Pacif­ic — and that includes South Korea,” he said. “America’s armed forces are going to stay ready for the full range of con­tin­gen­cies and threats. And the alliance between the Unit­ed States and the Repub­lic of Korea remains unshakable.” 

Oba­ma said he and Lee also dis­cussed region­al secu­ri­ty, which starts with the issue of North Korea. Lee said he and Oba­ma will con­tin­ue to enhance and strength­en the two nations’ com­bined defense capa­bil­i­ties, and he called on North Korea to end its pur­suit of a nuclear weapon. 

“We will firm­ly respond to any threats or provo­ca­tions from the North,” the South Kore­an pres­i­dent said. Both coun­tries can work togeth­er along with the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, he added, if North Korea gives up nuclear weapon and mis­sile development. 

Both pres­i­dents not­ed North Korea’s con­tra­dic­tion of its own recent com­mit­ments to the inter­na­tion­al community. 

“Last month, North Korea agreed to a series of steps, includ­ing a mora­to­ri­um on long-range mis­sile launch­es,” Oba­ma said. “This month, North Korea announced its inten­tion to con­duct a mis­sile launch. This would con­sti­tute a direct vio­la­tion of Pyongyang’s own com­mit­ments and its inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions. More­over, it would only deep­en North Korea’s iso­la­tion, dam­age fur­ther its rela­tions with its neigh­bors, and seri­ous­ly under­mine the prospect of future negotiations.” 

Lee said the Unit­ed States and South Korea agree that North Korea’s announce­ment that it will test-fire its long-range mis­sile is a vio­la­tion of U.N. Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil res­o­lu­tions, not to men­tion the lat­est agree­ment between the U.S. and North Korea. 

“There­fore,” he said, “Pres­i­dent Oba­ma and I both agreed that North Korea must imme­di­ate­ly repeal its deci­sion and abide by its inter­na­tion­al obligations.” 

Not­ing that he and Oba­ma reaf­firmed the val­ue and impor­tance of the U.S.-South Kore­an alliance in their meet­ing today, Lee said they also dis­cussed their vision of the partnership’s future. 

“Fol­low­ing the adop­tion of the future vision of the alliance, which was adopt­ed in June 2009, our alliance is evolv­ing into a tru­ly glob­al part­ner­ship where we are work­ing shoul­der-to-shoul­der to resolve glob­al chal­lenges,” he said. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →