Morning Walkthrough March 17

Remarks by Christopher R. Hill

Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs

Morning Walk-Through, St. Regis Hotel

Beijing, China

March 17, 2007 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  Hi, I don’t have very much this morning -- except I need to go, want to see Kenichiro Sasae.  And I don’t want to be late.  We’’re going to do some consultations.  He got in late last night, and we want to consult about the denuclearization working group and look ahead to the Monday Six-Party meeting.  As I mentioned last night, I look forward to seeing Mr. Kim Gye-gwan after he arrives on the Air Koryo flight.  I think we’ll have a full day today, and I’d be happy to let you know at the end of the day what it looks like. 

QUESTION:  Any schedule for the Kim Gye-gwan meeting yet? 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  No, I think it depends on the Air Koryo flight.  I haven’t checked the website, so I’m not sure when it gets in. 

QUESTION:  Will you meet him out at the Diaoyutai for lunch? 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  Probably the Diaoyutai.  Also, since I’m participating in the denuclearization working group, maybe we need to schedule it around that. 

QUESTION:  What kind of issues are you going to talk about for the working group? 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  On denuclearization?  I think we’re going to assess where we are in the first 60 days, compare notes on the meeting with ElBaradei - with Mohamed ElBaradei.  Then I think we’re going to talk about the list of nuclear programs to be abandoned, and that needs to be completed during this upcoming second phase.  As you recall, in the February 13th statement the DPRK is obliged to discuss the list.  Of course I’ll be briefing the DPRK on the BDA decision. 

QUESTION:  Mr. Ambassador, you said last night that you spoke with North Korea about the U.S. Treasury --  

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  I will do that. 

QUESTION:  -- only on general terms in New York.  Have you got the same news from China or did you -- 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  Oh no, I think we’’ve had -- The Treasury people have been here more recently to talk to the Chinese, and I think Mr. Glaser will come to Beijing as well.  But we’ve had some discussions with the Chinese in the last few days on this. 

QUESTION:  My question is, will your consultations with Chinese be held with North Korea? 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  Well, in the sense that we’ve seen them more recently, and we’ve seen them in the run-up to the actual announcement that was made by Treasury the other day, and we saw them after the announcement, and we have not seen the DPRK in that time frame.  We haven’t talked to them since New York.  And at the time it was very general discussions, as they were at the time with the Chinese and the others. 

QUESTION:  Will you be dealing with the enriched uranium issue in this round of talks? 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I’m not sure we’ll deal with it in the - We’ll certainly, it’ll certainly be brought up in the denuclearization working group.  We have agreed in the past to have a sort of sub-working group to deal with it specifically.  So we might try to schedule when we could actually do that in a sub-working group entirely devoted to the issue of HEU purchases - equipment purchases. 

QUESTION:  Will you be dealing with issues like the sealing of Yongbyon and what exactly that entrails? 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  I think we have an idea from ElBaradei, Mohamed ElBaradei, on that, so I’m sure that will come up.  But I think to the extent that we’ll be talking about IAEA actions, it might be more in terms on the next phase, which is the disabling of the Yongbyon complex. 

QUESTION:  What are you talking about when meeting with Mr. Kim Gye-gwan today? 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  What will I be talking about? 

QUESTION:  Yesh. 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  I’ll probably spend more of the time briefing the BDA issue.  And we might talk a little about what he’s going to say in the Six-Party meeting and to get an idea of what their desired time frame is for the second phase.  One issue is the question of, as we learned in the energy working group, is the question of how quickly they can absorb heavy fuel oil -- and how the schedule of absorbing heavy fuel oil relates to the schedule of their denuclearization actions.  We might try to see if we can talk about what milestones there might be for denuclearization, so we can match up denuclearization milestones with heavy fuel oil delivery milestones.   

EMBASSY PRESS OFFICER: We have time for one more question. 

QUESTION:  Are you confident North Korea will be satisfied about your --  

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  Yes, I think we’ll work that out.  I’m not concerned with - I think the BDA will not pose an obstacle.  It’s a big decision..  I know there will be a lot of questions.  That’s why I wanted the opportunity to meet with Mr. Kim Gye-gwan.  But I don’t - I’m very confident we will not be talking about BDA a couple of days from now.  You may be, but I won’t.  [Laughter]   

Okay, see you later.