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SEOUL : The South Korean government expressed surprise and shock on Tuesday after the perpetrator of the deadliest school shooting in US history was identified as a Korean citizen.
Foreign Minister Song Min-Soon chaired a late-night emergency meeting of ministry staff after news broke that the culprit was Cho Seung-Hui, a legal US resident.
Police said Cho may have acted alone in killing 32 people at Virginia Tech University before committing suicide on Monday.
Cho was an undergraduate student in his senior year majoring in English who lived on campus. His residence was in Centerville, Virginia, and he had resident alien status.
"The government expresses indescribable surprise and shock over this shooting incident," South Korean foreign ministry official Cho Byung-Jae said in a televised statement.
"We convey deep condolences to the victims and their bereaved families and the (US) people," said Cho, head of the ministry's North American affairs bureau.
"We have established safety measures for ethnic Koreans in the US in case of contingencies and are in close consultations with all of our diplomatic missions and Korean communities in the US to implement the measures."
He did not elaborate but appeared to be referring to the possibility of reprisal attacks against Korean communities in the United States.
Millions of ethnic Koreans live in the United States, a close ally since South Korea came into being in 1948 following the post-war division of the peninsula. - AFP/de
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