Lee stresses strong security for New Year

President Lee Myung-bak stressed Sunday the importance of maintaining national security as a basis for the lives of the people and the country's economic development for the New Year.

"The basis for this year is to strongly protect the country while the biggest goal is to create jobs and tame inflation," Lee said during a breakfast meeting with officials at South Korea's presidential office Cheong Wa Dae on New Year's Day.

"Maintaining national security firmly, among other things, is required to make the people concentrate on their livelihoods and encourage businesses and foreigners to make investments," Lee added.

Before convening the meeting, Lee began the new year by visiting the Seoul National Cemetery with his aides to pay respect to the deceased patriots.

Lee wrote in the visitor's book of his pledge to "spare no efforts to protect the country and make it prosper in the future by following the spirit of the ancestors who sacrificed their lives for the country," according to presidential spokesman Park Jeong-ha. (Yonhap)