President Park Geun-hye made a surprise visit to U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert on Monday as he recovers from wounds he sustained in a knife attack last week.
Park visited Severance Hospital, where the envoy has been hospitalized since Thursday when a South Korean activist slashed him in the face and wrist to protest joint military drills between Seoul and Washington.
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(Yonhap) |
Park made the visit immediately after returning to the country from a four-nation tour of the Middle East.
Hospital officials said the ambassador has been recovering faster than expected and could be released as early as Tuesday afternoon. The wounds required more than 80 stitches.
On the day of the attack, which took place inside a hall in downtown Seoul where Lippert was scheduled to give a speech, Park made a phone call to the envoy from Abu Dhabi to wish him a speedy recovery.
Park -- who received more than a dozen stitches on her face at the same hospital in 2006 after being attacked by a knife-wielding man during an election campaign in Seoul -- has vowed to ensure that the incident does not have a negative impact on the South Korea-U.S. alliance.
The assailant, Kim Ki-jong, has been detained on charges of attempted murder, violence against a foreign envoy and obstruction of business.
He claimed the joint military drills, which are designed to better deter threats from North Korea, hinder efforts to reunify the two Koreas.
The North has long accused the allies of rehearsing for a nuclear war against it. (Yonhap)
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