Morning Walk-Through, St. Regis Hotel Beijing, China - April 14, 2007

Remarks by Christopher R. Hill

Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs

Morning Walk-Through, St. Regis Hotel

Beijing, China

April 14, 2007 
 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  I’m meeting with the Chinese this afternoon. I should be back here around five or six. I haven’t heard anything new this morning. So, we’ll see what the Chinese have to say. And we’ll need to be talking with the Chinese about where we stand on the February 13^th agreement and how the Chinese assess the days ahead. I’ve also reached out and talked to the ROK this morning – to my counterpart there – to see if they have anything new, and I’ll probably talk to my other counterparts by phone this afternoon. 

QUESTION:  You talked to Kim Gye-gwan this morning? 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  No, ROK.  

QUESTION:  Oh, ROK 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  That’s the other Korea.  

QUESTION: What does it say?  Today is the deadline, and the North Koreans know that you are waiting here in Beijing, and a meeting was possible if they would have taken the offer to come to Beijing. What does it say that they couldn’t even come as a symbolic gesture today to meet with you? 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  Well, it is not for me to analyze the North Koreans. I think they have made it very clear that they would want to meet once they are prepared to meet. I don’t think they do symbolic meetings in advance. So, I’m not surprised. We have to see if that statement yesterday meant anything at all. I just don’t know. [Long silence] 

I don’t have much else to say here. Sorry. [Laughter] 

QUESTION: What time is your meeting with Wu Dawei? 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  I think around three o’clock. They have just come back very late last night from the Tokyo visit. As you know, the Chinese have been very busy in South Korea and Tokyo. Let’s see if we can get them busy on Pyongyang now. [Laughter] 

QUESTION:  Are you going to call Sasae sometime today? 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  Yes, I’m going to try to reach him today. I talked to him the other day.  But you know he has been very busy with the Wen Jiabao visit, so I didn’t try to reach him yesterday.  But I talked to him the day before. 

QUESTION:  What measures should be taken to keep the momentum for the talks focused?  

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  Don’t have a lot of momentum right now. That’s for sure. I think what is important is we need to work very closely with our partners. I think it is often the desire of the North Koreans to try to get the other partners in the Six-Party process to be arguing with each other.  And we are not going to do that.  

I think there is a very strongly held view, a consensus, among the parties that the North Koreans got what they wanted through the February agreement, and now it is time for them to fulfill their part. That seems only fair.   

A number of us have worked very hard to do our part. It has not been easy. I know that other delegations have spent a lot of time traveling, working very hard, developing our own internal positions. We’d like to see a similar level of effort from the DPRK – a level of effort that frankly we haven’t been seeing.  

We’ll work closely with our partners and have an agreed way forward. OK? 

QUESTION:  You said you’ve fulfilled all of your obligations, so in terms of this state-sponsored terrorism issue and the Trading with the Enemy Act, can you tell me what you’ve done so far? 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  Well that was not an obligation in this sixty-day period.  What we agreed to do was to begin a process, and that was done during the course of our bilateral meeting with the DPRK to discuss those issues.  They answered some questions that we had posed to them; we raised some other issues.  So we began a process, and that’s really what that was. 

QUESTION:  Are you disappointed that the North Koreans didn’t show any movement, didn’t show any respect to the deadline? 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  I am not more interested – I should not be more interested in this arrangement then they are.  If this is going to work, they need to show an equal amount of concern to make it work.  I’m not going to express any disappointment on this score.  I think they know what they need to do. 

QUESTION:  The North Koreans may be looking at this that the U.S. side said that they would meet the BDA obligations within thirty days, and obviously that deadline was not met.  Now there’s a deadline today for the Yongbyon to be shut down.  Could they be looking at it in those terms – that you didn’t meet their deadline so this deadline is not important to them? 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  I have no idea how they’re looking at it.  They’re not a very communicative bunch of people.  I can assure that our role was to resolve the U.S. matter, the U.S. involvement in BDA within thirty days. And we did that.  If the North Koreans had an additional issue, that is to see that their funds were actually released by the Macau authorities, we actually supported that.  And the Macau authorities took that measure.  Now that went beyond any role that we stated and ,frankly, any role that we had.  How they are looking at this – whether in a world of reciprocity they think they should be late on this, I have no idea.  You have to ask them, if you can find a telephone. 

QUESTION:  Are you preparing to issue some statement today? 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  I would look to Washington to see if there’s a statement coming out today.  I would expect there will be something from the press spokesman at the State Department. 

QUESTION:  Is there going to be some kind of five-party meetings or telephone conference? 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  I think we need to be in touch, and we’ll kick around a number of ideas.  I’m sure that’ll be one of them. 

QUESTION:  You think you’ll do that today in Beijing? 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  As I mentioned, I’ll be reaching out by telephone to the other parties today. 

QUESTION:  Are you hoping to do it as a group in a conference call? 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  I think we’ll just kick around ideas and see what we want to do.  We want to do things that are in our interest to do.  We need to collect opinions from the different parties.   

I think for me a key opinion here is the Chinese.  They are the host of this.  They also worked very hard.  They made their own facilities available.  They hosted us for many days to make sure that this happened.  I’m sure they have some views on what the DPRK is doing.  I’ll start with the Chinese, and I’ll reach out to the other parties.  

I’m sure parties are reaching out to each other right now.  I know the Japanese and Chinese have had substantial talks about this over the last couple of days, with the occasion afforded by the visit of Wen Jiabao.  We’ll see. 

Thank you. 

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