The new U.S. Ambassador to Seoul on Friday denied that Washington’s stance on North Korea amounts to “strategic patience.”

Mark Lippert, who recently took up the ambassadorial post from Sung Kim, said that there is a great deal of activity going on out of public view.

“You don’t read about it in the newspapers, you don’t always see it on TV, but this is something that is extremely important to policymakers in Washington,” he told the JoongAng Daily.

The term “strategic patience” was first used by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to describe the U.S. position