Fourth Round of Six-Party Talks: Evening Return to Hotel

QUESTION: Any progress has been made today?

A/S HILL: I think today was a pretty important day because this morning the Chinese hosts of the talks distributed a text. It’s a text based on written submissions from the other parties. Today was the first opportunity to take something that could become the final document and try to see if we can reach agreement on it. So, speaking for the U.S. delegation, we’ve had a lot of bilateral discussions about this text. We’ve met with the South Korean delegation. We met with the Japanese delegation, the North Korean delegation, and of course met with the Chinese delegation as well. We also had a meeting of all the six parties. So it was a very intensive day for meetings. Then, I think tomorrow we’re going to try to sit down and give each other’s ideas to try to build a final text. When we’re able to do that is hard to tell, because these things take time. Different countries have different viewpoints on them, but I’m pleased we’re operating off of one piece of paper now, and we’ll see how we do.

QUESTION: Ambassador, what’s your assessment of the Chinese text?

A/S HILL: I think, in our view, the Chinese text represents a good basis for the further negotiation and further discussion. First of all, I want to say the Chinese side, under Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei worked very, very hard. It was truly noticeable how much work the Chinese side did on this text. So we think it’s a good basis, and we think we can work with it. But again, it’s hard to tell until we actually sit down with all the other parties and they all give their input and we’ll see how we do. We anticipate spending most of tomorrow just dealing with, as we say, wordsmithing.

QUESTION: Ambassador Hill, do the six parties agree to the concept of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula?

A/S HILL: I think we do have a consensus on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and this is something that everyone has understood. That’s the purpose of the talks. But of course there’re some other elements. The D.P.R.K., especially, has an emphasis on some other elements. So we have to see how we do. And, I want to emphasize that as much as I would like to talk about progress, it’s hard to talk about progress until you actually have an agreement. And then, when you have an agreement, you can kind of work back from there and say yes, this was a key moment, or this was the important day, but until we have an agreement it’s really hard to say that. Well thank you all, I think you all ought to go to bed. I think you’re up too late, in fact. So, good night and see you tomorrow.

QUESTION: Will you wrap it up tomorrow?

A/S HILL: I doubt it, I doubt it -- really too much work to get done just tomorrow.

QUESTION: Mr. Ambassador, can you elaborate on the contents of your discussion with the D.P.R.K. today?

A/S HILL: Actually, I’m not going to elaborate. Obviously we have some issues on the actual text. We had some issues about where we should focus our concentration, and I must say we had an understanding about where we should proceed. But obviously there are a lot of elements in the text that we have a disagreement on, so we’re going to have to work that through.

QUESTION: How many days do you think you should have to stay here?

A/S HILL: I don’t know, if I knew the answer to that I’d be a very happy person, but I don’t know the answer to that, so we’re just going to have to go one day at a time.