Clinton Expands Nogun-ri 'Regrets'

President Bill Clinton says that he personally sees no difference between "regret" and "apology"in the U.S. government's official position on the killing of Korean civilians by American soldiers at the village of Nogun-ri, North Chungchong Province, early in the Korean War.

"I don't think there's any difference in the two words – regret and apology - because they both mean that we are profoundly sorry for what happened and that things happened which were wrong," Mr. Clinton said Friday at the White House.

In South Korea, families and survivors of the massacre in 1950 protested the U.S. official statement last week, saying that it falls short of a formal government apology and compensation.

The soldiers fired on refugee crowds in fear that they contained North Korean infiltrators.