AP, Seoul :U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert was in stable condition after a man screaming demands for a unified North and South Korea slashed him on the face and wrist with a knife, South Korean police and U.S. officials said Thursday.Media images showed a stunned-looking Lippert examining his blood-covered left hand and holding his right hand over a cut on the right side of his face, his pink tie splattered with blood.The U.S. State Department condemned the attack, which happened at a performing arts center in downtown Seoul as the ambassador was preparing for a lecture about prospects for peace on the divided Korean Peninsula.The U.S. Embassy later said Lippert was in stable condition after surgery at a Seoul hospital.In a televised briefing, Chung Nam-sik of the Severance Hospital said 80 stiches were needed to close the facial wound, which was 11 centimeters (just more than 4 inches) long and 3 centimeters (just more than 1 inch) deep. He added the cut did not affect his nerves or salivary gland.Chung said the knife penetrated through Lippert’s left arm and damaged the nerves connected to his pinkie and tendons connected to his thumb. Lippert will need to be treated at the hospital for the next three or four days and may experience sensory problems in his left hand for several months, Chung said.The attack will shock many outsiders because the United States is South Korea’s closest ally, its military protector and a big trading partner and cultural influence.But the reported comments of the suspect, 55-year-old Kim Ki-jong, during the attack – “South and North Korea should be reunified” – touch on a deep political divide in South Korea over the still-fresh legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, which is still technically ongoing because it ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. Some South Koreans blame the presence of 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in the South as a deterrent to the North for the continuing split of the Korean Peninsula along the world’s most heavily armed border – a view North Korea’s propaganda machine regularly pushes in state media.The attack came suddenly, witnesses said. A knife-wielding man ran screaming up to Lippert as soup was being served for the breakfast meeting and began slashing, said Kim Young-man, spokesman for the group hosting the breakfast, the Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation. A separate, unidentified witness told local media that as Lippert stood up for a handshake, the suspect wrestled the ambassador to the ground and slashed him with a knife.
