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SEOUL – The man who slashed the U.S. ambassador here last month said Thursday he was proud he reduced the South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises by one day.

Kim Ki-jong was arrested on March 5 immediately after he attacked Mark Lippert with a knife at a breakfast meeting in Seoul. More than 80 stitches were required to close the gashes on the envoy’s face and wrist.

Prosecutors have charged Kim with attempted murder, violence against a foreign envoy and business obstruction.

The first charge is punishable by up to eight years in prison.

Kim pleaded guilty to the latter two charges but denies he tried to murder the ambassador.

“I’m not trying to brag, and I won’t call my action ‘worthwhile,'” Kim, brimming with confidence, said during the first session of his pretrial at a court here. “But I prevented people from getting hurt by stopping the joint drills even for a day. I hope you take that into consideration.”

Kim said he believes the drills hamper efforts to reunify the two Koreas, which technically remain at war since no peace treaty formally ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

South Korea and the U.S. have carried out joint annual exercises since the 1990s to better deter North Korean aggression. The North claims the drills are a rehearsal for a northward invasion.

The first part of this year’s Key Resolve exercise ended a day early on March 5, but the South Korean military says Kim’s attack had nothing to do with the drill schedule.

This year’s Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises run from March 2 to Friday.

Lippert travels to Gyeongju for press forum

SEOUL, April 23 – Mark Lippert, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea, went on an outing Thursday to an ancient capital city along with a group of senior journalists.

His visit to Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, is part of a forum co-hosted by the Korea News Editors’ Association and the U.S. Embassy in Seoul. Twenty members of the association are joining the program.

During his two-day stay in the city, Lippert will also tour several historic sites such as Seokuram and Bulguksa temples and deliver a lecture to students at the local campus of Dongguk University.

Meanwhile, the envoy invited children from the Seoul National School for the Deaf to his official residence in Seoul earlier this week, according to the embassy.

In an event to mark Earth Day, he helped them plant vegetables in his new garden at the residence.