By Kim Se-jeong
Staff reporter
President Lee Myung-bak said Saturday that chances for a full-scale war on the Korean Peninsula are nonexistent, despite rising inter-Korean tensions in the wake of the sinking of a South Korean Navy ship in March.
There is no chance of a full-scale war at all, the President said in a meeting with business leaders in Singapore, adding he will try to prevent the recurrence of a skirmish between the two Koreas, according to Presidential spokesman Park Sun-kyoo.
Lee made the remarks to assure prospective Singaporean investors of the economic stability of the country, according to Yonhap News Agency. Present at the meeting was Tony Chew, chairman of the Singapore Business Federation.
The President returned home late Saturday after attending the Asian Security Summit, an annual regional security forum known as the Shangri-La Dialogue, in Singapore.
On the sidelines of the security talks, President Lee met U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and discussed the ship sinking.
Gates told Lee that the U.S. will follow the leadership of South Korea in dealing with the Cheonan incident at the U.N. Security Council and in fixing the date for a joint anti-submarine drill, Yonhap said.
A naval exercise planned to be carried out this week was postponed indefinitely.
Observers said Lee and Gates didn't seem to have discussed the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) of South Korean forces from the U.S. military to South Korea, which is scheduled for 2012.
Conservatives in Korea have strongly objected to the idea, and gained more leverage through the Cheonan incident.
South Korea has referred North Korea to the U.N. Security Council over the sinking of the warship, taking its strongest step yet toward making Pyongyang face international punishment.
An international investigation found the warship was torpedoed by a North Korean submarine that killed 46 sailors.