TOKYO: US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday he would be making a stop on the way home from a 10-day overseas tour to visit the family of a young diplomat killed in Afghanistan.
"The reason that I'm stopping in Chicago is to visit the parents of Anne Smedinghoff," Kerry told embassy staff just before leaving Tokyo, referring to a 25-year-old American who died in a bomb attack earlier this month.
Smedinghoff was one of five Americans killed in separate attacks on April 6 in Afghanistan, one of the deadliest days of the year so far for foreigners in the war-torn country.
Her death shook the US, with relatives and colleagues paying tribute to a smart, young woman at the beginning of a promising career.
"Everybody understands and feels that kind of a loss. A 25-year-old young woman full of ideals, full of hopes, taking books to children in a school so they can learn... wiped out by terrorists," said Kerry.
"We are not going to be deterred. We are going to be inspired. And we'll use Anne's idealism as another motivation to the idealism that brings all of you to this effort in the first place," he told embassy staffers.
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