S.Korea's Lee calls for new strategic bond with U.S.

By Patrick Worsnip

NEW YORK (Reuters) - South Korean President Lee Myung-bak called on Tuesday for a new strategic alliance with Washington but said North Korea should be talked peacefully out of its nuclear program without its political system being threatened.

Starting a visit to the United States, his first foreign trip since his inauguration in February, Lee sought to dismiss concerns he said had arisen in recent years about a weakening of U.S.-South Korean relations.

"I assure you that we should and we will move forward," he told a Korea Society dinner in New York. "The politicization of alliance relations shall be behind us," said the president, whose liberal predecessor Roh Moo-hyun had swept to power on a wave of anti-Americanism.

Lee called on Seoul and Washington to work out a "common strategy for peace and prosperity" for the Korean Peninsula and elsewhere that he dubbed a "Korea-U.S. Strategic Alliance," embracing military, political, economic and cultural ties.

"Under the military alliance built on mutual trust, the two countries will join forces to alleviate tensions on the Korean Peninsula and to promote peace in Northeast Asia," Lee said.

The United States has about 28,000 troops stationed in South Korea to help it defend against invasion by the communist North, which in past weeks has threatened to reduce the South to ashes and unleashed a torrent of insults aimed at Lee.

But Lee struck a conciliatory note on the North and called for peaceful resolution of the international standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear program.

"We have deep affection for our compatriots in the North, and have no intention of threatening its political system," he said.