The United States promised on Saturday to give 'immediate support' to South Korea in a renewed mutual defence statement that highlighted the North Korean threat in the wake of its first nuclear test.
In language notably sharper than last year's joint statement, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld promised Seoul "assurances of firm US commitment and immediate support" in defence matters, while repeating the annual pledge to use the US nuclear umbrella to deter threats against South Korea.
The new statement, released on Saturday after the 38th US-South Korea Security Consultative Meeting on Friday, also expressed Washington and Seoul's "grave concern" over North Korea's nuclear test on October 9.
It "condemned in the strongest terms the North's clear threat to international peace and security as well as the stability of the Korean Peninsula."
It further demanded that "North Korea refrain from any further action that might aggravate tensions."
The language was somewhat tougher than the communique of last year's joint meeting, in which Rumsfeld simply "reaffirmed the US commitment to the security of the Republic of Korea, and to the continued provision of a nuclear umbrella for the ROK, consistent with the Mutual Defence Treaty."
The newest joint communique emerged from the meeting on Friday between Rumsfeld and his South Korean counterpart, Minister of Defence Yoon Kwang Ung, which was preceded two days earlier by a meeting of the two country's top generals in the 28th South Korea-US Military Committee Meeting.
South Korea had reportedly wanted tougher language in this year's statement, especially in relation to the US extension to South Korea of its nuclear deterrent.
But on Friday Rumsfeld said that there was not need to change the language. The US commitment "is as solid today as it was when it was first stated" in 1978 under the two countries' military alliance, Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon news conference with Yoon.