Briefing From Seoul, Korea

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Hi. Well, I guess I’ve been asked to give you a quick brief on the Secretary’s early introductory call with President Lee Myung-bak.

QUESTION: Yes.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Thank you, Matthew. Just wanted to see if you were alive out there. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: You’re also here to talk about Brazil.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Oh, okay. I’ve got some notes on that here. The Secretary met with Lee Myung-bak at the – in the Blue House for about 45 minutes. The discussion was very general, but it was – concerned the strength of the alliance and the need to do more to keep the alliance strong. They talked about the six-party process and President Lee said that he would do all he could to strengthen U.S.-ROK cooperation in the six-party process. He said that a strong U.S.-ROK relationship does not mean that they – they would increase tensions with North Korea. On the contrary; a strong U.S.-ROK relationship is good for the inter-Korean dialogue.

They talked a little about the Free Trade Agreement and both Secretary Rice and President Lee expressed a desire to see the agreement get finally ratified. President Lee said he understands there are voices in the States who are – who have expressed concerns about the agreement and asked that we continue to press forward. And the Secretary said that the Administration remains firmly behind the agreement and looks forward to getting it ratified.

That was about it.

QUESTION: Was that – were you quoting the president when you said strong U.S.-ROK relationship does not mean (inaudible)?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I was paraphrasing.

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, he said a strong U.S.-ROK relationship means a good inter-Korean relationship.

QUESTION: Did they get into at all President Lee’s campaign statement talking about taking off the – being more stringent in dealings with North Korea, hopefully with the (inaudible) progress with the nuclear issue? Did any of that come up?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Some of that came up in the meeting with the Foreign Minister-Designate Yu Myung-Hwan. But that did not come up in this meeting. This meeting was much more general in nature.

QUESTION: And do you guys regard that as potentially useful in trying to push the six-party process forward, that the South Koreans might take a harder line?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, they didn’t say a harder line. They said they – Foreign Minister Yu said that they would be – they would want to strengthen their cooperation with us, as did President Lee, and they would continue to – they would continue an overall policy of engagement with North Korea, but they would be looking for greater reciprocity. So he reiterated lines that we’ve heard during the – during the campaign.

QUESTION: Was that – did greater reciprocity seem (inaudible)?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Again, I don’t think I need to comment on what the South Korean policies are with respect to the inter-Korean dialogue except that they emphasized – both Foreign Minister designate and President Lee emphasized the desire to work very closely with the U.S.

QUESTION: Ambassador, on the talk with the Foreign Minister-Designate, have you come up with any idea of proposal to strengthen the U.S.-ROK-Japan trilateral relationship to deal with the North Koreans like the one we had several years ago (inaudible)?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: There was – I want to emphasize these were very introductory meetings. The Foreign Minister is not yet Foreign Minister. He has his hearing in two days and he’s not formally been named. And the meeting with President Lee was an introductory meeting, so they did not get into any specifics about how to strengthen the trilateral process. Those issues have been addressed in previous weeks by the – by ROK officials and there was a desire to do more, but it’s as yet undefined precisely how that would be done. I can say to you that specifically, in the past, we – prior to six-party meetings, we would have trilateral meetings and those were – this continued a couple years ago and I would expect that that kind of trilateral process would be started up again.

QUESTION: Even if it wasn’t raised in the meeting, what does the Administration – does the Administration think that a subtle – even a subtle shift in the South and the North will help at all, will hurt at all?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I mean, again --

QUESTION: I hear it may not have come up, it may be too early, but --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: It didn’t. It did not come up. What is very clear, though, is that the ROK wants to strengthen its bilateral cooperation with the United States in the context of the six-party talks.

QUESTION: Which is a good thing?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Which is a good thing, yes. We like people to strengthen cooperation with us.

QUESTION: Thank you. Thank you. Was there something lacking with the previous South Korean --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I don’t want to get into that. I mean, I don’t want to criticize – my point of talking about strengthening relations is not to say that we didn’t have good ties with the previous administration, but this administration feels that these relations can and should be strengthened and, of course, we welcome that sentiment.

QUESTION: On Friday, the Secretary talked about trying to have the six-party process be more specifically with proliferation issues. Did that come up in (inaudible)?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Again, these were very introductory meetings, but of course, we have had that discussion. I have had some of those discussions with the – with the ROK and with the other partners in the six parties. And I think the sentiment is that the six parties need to be responsible for making sure that agreements reached are agreements that are fulfilled. And with respect to proliferation, there was an agreement in October which included a provision where North Korea made a pledge that it is not only not proliferating, but will not proliferate in the future. So it’s appropriate for the six parties to make sure that that pledge and other pledges in the October agreement are followed through on.

QUESTION: You said that she was thinking about something else, though, not just making sure that, you know, that the October agreement gets – is carried out.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I think the issue is that when countries make pledges, as in the case of the October agreement, the North Koreans said it will not transfer nuclear technology or know-how that the six parties ought to be – ought to have a means to ensure that that pledge is fulfilled. So I think that’s the thought that animates that comment.

QUESTION: And what kind of news might that involve?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Again, I think it’s kind of early to get into that except that we do have working groups that are supposed to not only deal with some of the implementation aspects, but also deal with the – you know, making sure that these pledges are, in fact, happening.

QUESTION: President Lee and Foreign Minister-Designate Yu agree on your stance of demanding that the complete and correct declaration?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Yes, they support that, yes.

QUESTION: Chris, you said in the declaration – in October – agreement, then he said that they do not and will not proliferate; I’m paraphrasing. But it seems now that you want to do sort of retrospect to find out what they did in the past, which is not exactly what everybody has agreed on in terms of the Chinese, perhaps the Russians. So is it --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, that is in the context of – not of their proliferation – nonproliferation pledge, but rather in the context of their – their requirement to provide a complete and correct declaration. And a complete and correct declaration needs to include all of their nuclear programs including any foreign cooperation.

QUESTION: So when the Secretary talked on Friday at the briefing about using the six-party framework to address proliferation issues, what exactly more does this issue need rather than the declaration?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: The fact that the six-party process needs to implement and monitor obligations made by the parties and one of these obligations was a nonproliferation pledge by the North Koreans.

QUESTION: Is this sort of like PSI by another name?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: No, I wouldn’t call it PSI. This is the six parties making sure that they implement and monitor all agreements.

QUESTION: Because I’m trying to figure out how you can monitor something like that without trying to (inaudible).

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: One could imagine a certain – some information-sharing, but at this point, I can’t go into any further, you know, elaboration on it. But obviously, it involves the cooperation among the six parties.

QUESTION: Did you discuss the timing of the sentence from the North? Do you see eye-to-eye on how to encourage the North to do more?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I think there was a commitment. I mean, we had a discussion about the – not in the – I’m sorry, not in the meeting with the President because that was a very general meeting, but in – more in the meeting with the – with the Foreign Minister-Designate as well as in my consultations in the past week, there was an agreement that we need to see the October agreement fully implemented and that – that includes the provision of a complete and correct declaration.

Of course, we’ve also discussed, in general terms, what the next phase, the so-called Phase 3 would entail and this, we would see as a phase in which we would address a number of the issues including normalization of – bilateral normalization, including a peace treaty on the Korean Peninsula, including the establishment of a Northeast Asia peace and security mechanism, North Korea’s access to international financial institutes – institutions as well as once North Korea has given up its nuclear ambitions, return to the NPT and accepted IAEA standards – safeguards, rather, we would begin to have a discussion about the subject of a provision – of a commercial nuclear program. So all of the – none of this is really new, but these are – we’ve had these discussions about this.

QUESTION: Can you elaborate a little bit on the regional security method?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Yeah. Now again, this goes now beyond the issue of what the Secretary was talking about in general terms, but for people who have been following the six-party talks and all of its minutia, the concept has been that the six parties has begun a process of multilateralization in Northeast Asia. And the thought is that as this process goes forward, we might want to preserve the process even beyond the resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue. And so to preserve the process, we have been working with the other parties on a – the idea of a Northeast Asia peace and security mechanism where, as a start, the six parties would meet periodically to discuss problems and – security problems and regional interests. We would have a – kind of an open architecture to invite other countries in and look for other ways that the countries can cooperate on peace and security issues.

Now, this has been – this was set up as a working group, one of our working groups, pursuant to the February ’07 agreement. And Russia is in the chair of this. And we’ve had a number of working group meetings most recently in Moscow. I think it was in the end of November. I could check that for you, but I think it was November, to elaborate this. Now, we would see this happening, the creation of this in the context of North Korea denuclearizing. And from – for North Korea, it would invite the possibility of being in on the ground floor of a multilateral organization – northeast (inaudible).

QUESTION: Do you see that as an additional (inaudible)?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I would see it as an incentive for them. But I think it’s not only good for North Korea, I think it’s good for the region and practically good for our interests as well. But you know, we can’t really be talking about these downstream issues until we can take care of the problem we have now which is their nuclear ambitions.

QUESTION: Do you believe that the (inaudible) and information sharing within the context of the six-party process would require the North Koreans consent or is that something (inaudible) to do?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: No. I think it’s a question of the six parties agreeing on the need to monitor the agreements that we have come up with and make sure they’re being implemented. And so you know, we don’t want a situation where we have the February agreement and you know, October agreement and then, ‘lo and behold, things that are obligated and where parties are obligated are not being pursued. So this is a – I mean, if you top to think about it, this is fairly obvious that you would want the six parties to make sure the agreements that the six parties are reaching are actually implemented.

QUESTION: I was wondering if the North Koreans have not, you know, kept all of their obligations (inaudible) and so on. I wonder why it seems likely that they would necessarily agree with you (inaudible) going forward and what it would (inaudible.)

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, I think the – first of all, the North Koreans would like – I’m sure have an incentive in having the six parties determine whether we’re providing the fuel oil that we said we would under the agreement. And if they don’t feel we’re providing the fuel oil, it would be useful for them to be able to bring that to the six parties and say there was an agreement here to provide us with a certain amount of fuel oil and we haven’t received it yet. So I think they have an – they would have an incentive to make sure that the six parties are in fact monitoring the implementation of the agreements. Just think about it for a second and you’ll see it makes sense.

QUESTION: Can you look ahead for – can you look ahead to the meetings tomorrow and just give us a quick preview of what she’s going (inaudible.)

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Look, I cannot. I mean, she – I mean, I really think Sean ought to be here for this. (Laughter.) But I mean, she’s in China. And I think that that has to be left for another briefing.

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I’m sorry. I don’t have the schedule with me. But let me get to Sean and let – I mean, you need to do it for this story.

QUESTION: I’m trying to do it for (inaudible) in a couple of hours.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Yeah. I mean – I’m sorry.

QUESTION: But we will get schedules --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Yeah, but I mean, you see that the issue is he’s trying to wrap it into the same story. So where is Sean?

QUESTION: He’s up (inaudible.)

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I’m sorry.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) right now.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I think you ought to get him down here, okay. I mean, they’re all here. They’re all beavering away. And, you know, they had – these are legitimate questions. But I mean, I’m not the State Department spokesman. I mean (inaudible.)

QUESTION: (Inaudible) be trilateral about –

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Yeah.

QUESTION: -- why did that end and why did they (inaudible?)

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, if you listen carefully to Lee Myung-bak’s inaugural address today, he said that one of the countries they want to strengthen their relationship with is Japan. And since Lee Myung-bak was elected, his transition team has been talking about the need for a stronger relationship with Japan and, in particular, the need to restart the trilateral process that we have before. So when I started working on the six-party process back in the spring of 1880 – (laughter) – no, the spring of 2005, we had a practice of meeting trilaterally prior to six-party talks. And as long as I’m on the record here, I will just tell you that sometimes the meetings didn’t go very well. And so I felt that the meetings were frankly more trouble than they were worth. And so I think the concept here is that we can make the meetings a more positive effort and one that will assist in developing consensus for the six-party process. And there seems to be a real political will to do that not only here in Seoul, but also in Tokyo. And as you may know, there is some bilateral discussion between the Koreans and the Japanese with respect to Asia and the six-party process just a week ago. So we’d like to try it again.

QUESTION: Was the unification minister-designate there today. Did you have any meetings with him?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I’m sorry. I did not meet him. Yeah – I mean, I mean, we had meetings with the Foreign Minister Designate and the President. I did not meet the unification minister.

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Yes.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) past activities. Is it – you’ve talked about the --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: God, Nick. You have this way of looking like you’re thinking so hard when you’re asking these questions, but go --

QUESTION: I had mentioned the Syrian issue, but is it – what exactly are you looking for? Are you looking for a specific explanation (inaudible?) Are you looking to get a sort of bigger picture of North Korea’s (inaudible.)

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: You’re talking about the declaration.

QUESTION: Yeah.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Yeah. No, the declaration needs to be complete and correct. There are three elements to the declaration. First is nuclear materials. They’ve got to give us precise amount of -- separate plutonium and it’s a figure that we’re going to have to verify. I don’t really care what it is. If it’s 30, 40, 50 kilos, it’s doesn’t matter. What matters is you need to verify that it’s correct. And you verify that by looking at production records, but presumably also some direct inspection of the nuclear facilities at Yongbyon. That’s one. That’s the main issue on materials. Second issue is facilities. So we know a lot of their facilities through our own national technical means. We would like them to list what their facilities -- their nuclear facilities are.

Third issue and this is the issue that we’ve been talking about, they need to list their programs. Now, one program is an obvious one. The graphite moderated reactor, the plutonium program. We know a lot about that and I think they will list that. The second program we need to know about is our very strong contention shared by a number of our partners that they imported materials for a uranium enrichment program. So we need to know about that. If they claim it doesn’t exist anymore, we need to know then when it stopped, when it ended. We’ve had some good discussions on that, but we still need to know precisely what the story was with uranium enrichment. And another program is cooperation with abroad. And if it involves Syria, we need to know what they were doing with Syria and when it started and when it ended. If there are any other countries, we would also need to know the same thing. Why do we need to know what happened in the past? Because as we go forward in the future, we need a little clarity on what happened in the past, so we won’t have surprises in the future.

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, we’d have to find that out from them. Okay.

QUESTION: I have a real simple one. Is there anything in your meetings over the last week or so that makes you feel that (inaudible) willing to come up with the complete declaration?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, as I – I think I talked to some of your colleagues when I was in Beijing. And let me just say, we had some very good discussions with the North Koreans who, first of all, wanted to make very clear they did not regard the six-party process as stalemated or at an impasse and that they would like to find a way forward. So that was positive. And we also had some discussions about what the next phase would look like, assuming we get through this – this declaration. I think that was also positive. So also in talking to the Chinese, we found the Chinese very engaged and very interested in looking for some – a way forward. So I also talked to the South Koreans and the Japanese and we also felt that we were on the same sheet of music about it, as much in the philharmonic – no, sorry. (Laughter.) We were on the same wavelength.

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: No. I can talk about it, but I’m just talked out about it. So – and of course, you know, where we’ve had discussions with the Russians. In fact, we had the deputy six-party guy in Washington a couple weeks ago, Ambassador Rakhmanin. And so you know, I hate to talk about optimism. I don’t want to bet on a game I’m playing in. But I think there is a – there was a feeling that we can get through this phase two, but we’re all going to have to work at it.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) in relation to the concern that the third issue -- the second issue being uranium enrichment (inaudible) --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Under programs, you mean.

QUESTION: Right, right.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: When I was describing what a declaration would look like, yeah. Yeah.

QUESTION: And you said that this was the concern shared by a number of our partners. Is there anybody who doesn’t?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: No, no. I think – you know, I think everyone is concerned about it. Some are more concerned than others. But you know, again, I don’t want to be speaking for our partners, but I’m just saying that no one is surprised that we’re raising this issue.

QUESTION: On one (inaudible) you mentioned that there are (inaudible) easier to monitor that than to monitor whether North Korea (inaudible). But are you going to have – is the Secretary going to have specific proposals from the Chinese in terms of how to do this and how to share information (inaudible)?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I think specific issues would be left up to me as the head of the six-party delegation. But the Secretary plans to have extensive discussions with the Chinese and Japanese about where we’d go in this process, how we get to a phase two and how we, you know, tackle phase three. But I – in terms of how we monitor the agreements already reached, I think we will work on implementing that and as we have already actually. So we’ve already had some discussions with our partners on this. Okay. Even Sean, doesn’t go this long, does he? Where is Sean?

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I’m sorry.

QUESTION: He’s actually on the plane. But there is going to be (inaudible.)

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, they need to know what the program is in Beijing. And I’m sorry, I don’t have it with me. I mean, yeah --

QUESTION: (Inaudible) they actually have a draft schedule, so if you need to know more, I can get that to you.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Okay.

QUESTION: So this is on the record?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Yeah. I mean, I think this was on the record. Yeah.

QUESTION: Great.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Okay. (Inaudible) something wrong? (Laughter.)

2008/T6-2