Remarks After Meeting With IAEA Director General El Baradei

Christopher R. Hill, Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
Kempinksi Hotel
Beijing, China
March 15, 2007

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Let me just say this is just a courtesy call, because tomorrow morning I’ll be attending the briefing that Mr. ElBaradei will have with myself, with the South Korean and Japanese delegations. So this was more just a courtesy call. I think I got a sense of how his trip went in the DPRK, and I look forward to hearing the full briefing tomorrow.

QUESTION: How do you see the statement of the Treasury last night?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: How do I see the statement? I think there are two main elements people should note. First of all, the Treasury is very clear about the very good cooperation that we’ve had from the Macau authorities, the Macau monetary authorities, and the fact that Macau has taken a number of steps to deal with this problem. We see there’s been a lot of improvement in Macau, frankly. So it’s been a very positive experience with Macau.

With regard to the actual bank, Banco Delta Asia, there’s a continuing concern about the long-term management -- or the ownership of the bank -- and the fact that that has to be addressed before it’s possible to allow U.S. financial institutions to deal directly with Banco Delta Asia.

With regard to the issue of the DPRK accounts that the Macau authorities took the action to freeze, I think we look to the Macau authorities to deal with that problem based on their own obligations. I am pretty optimistic that this problem will not pose a problem for our Six-Party Talks, so I’ll continue to work very hard on our Six-Party process.

QUESTION: North Korea already has mentioned that if the sanction is not fully lifted, they’re only going to partly…

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I know. They’ve made a number of statements to the press on that. First of all, I don’t want to call this a sanction. This had to do with our concern about Banco Delta Asia and its handling of deposits. I am pretty convinced, based on my understanding of what we’re doing in Washington and the consultations, the very close consultations we’ve had up until now, that this issue will not be a problem as we go forward in the Six-Party process.

QUESTION: What were you doing at the Australian Embassy today?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I was meeting, I had lunch there, and I met with some Australian officials who had just returned from Pyongyang and were giving us sort of a trip report on their meetings in Pyongyang.

QUESTION: Any new news?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I don’t think there’s any new news, but it was very useful. Australia is a country that’s very interested in Northeast Asia and interested in being helpful in our process in the Six-Party Talks and also interested in doing what they can to help the DPRK when the DPRK is ready to make some very necessary reforms.

QUESTION: Did Mr. ElBaradei have any information on whether the North Koreans are planning to actually shut down…

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I’m sure he will, but we will do that at our consultations when he does the briefing tomorrow with South Korea, Japan, and the U.S.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) like the North Koreans are actually going to shut down?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I certainly got the impression from Mr. ElBaradei, what he said last night to the media is very much what he believes. I look forward to the full briefing when I meet tomorrow morning with the South Koreans and Japanese.

QUESTION: Did he say anything about the uranium enrichment program?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I didn’t talk to him about that, but we’ve had other consultations on that issue with others.

OK, see you later. Bye-bye.

Released on March 15, 2007