Leach, Lantos Provide Details of Visit to North Korea – Discussions Focused on Nuclear Nonproliferation, Human Rights, Humanitarian Aid

Posted on Sep 6, 2005

Two senior members of the U.S. Congress returned today from North Korea, where they spent four days meeting with high-ranking officials to stress bipartisan support for a successful culmination of ongoing nuclear negotiations known as the Six-Party Talks.

Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa), chairman of the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, and Rep. Tom Lantos (D-California), the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, met at length with authorities responsible for foreign policy, military affairs, and trade, as well as with non-governmental humanitarian aid workers.

Leach urged DPRK officials to recognize that delay in the Six-Party Talks is not in anybody's interest – particularly the North Koreans' – and he noted that there were significant advantages for the DPRK to deal with the Bush Administration.

"Just as only a conservative such as Nixon could have garnered the support of the American people in going to China in the early 1970s, perhaps the tough Bush approach provides the American Congress the most compelling basis for a change in relations with North Korea today," Leach said.

Lantos noted that North Korea's overtures in the Six-Party Talks have been received very positively in Washington, and said it was significant that the DPRK had moved toward a Statement of Principles calling for the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, including all of the DPRK's nuclear programs.

"The resumption of the Six-Party Talks as scheduled in just over a week presents an historic opportunity to reshape the future of Northeast Asia, and of the relationship between North Korea and the United States," Lantos said. "If our negotiations can arrive at a Statement of Principles that will define the objectives of the Six-Party Talks, the prospects for security and peace will rise dramatically. Such a Statement of Principles will offer a blueprint for further discussions; a good blueprint is essential to a solid structure.

Both Leach and Lantos urged officials to improve human rights in the DPRK, to crack down on counterfeiting of foreign currencies, to reconsider recent policies that profoundly alter humanitarian assistance from abroad and to foster cultural, education and athletic exchanges with the United States.

With regard to exchanges, the Congressmen suggested that Washington would welcome the prospect of a tour by the Pyongyang Circus and a visit by the North Korean wrestling team. The University of Iowa has also extended an invitation for North Korea to send a poet to its International Writers' Program.

In the context of economic development the Congressmen pointed out how important the role of the Korean exile community would be for North Korea if there were a change in relations with the United States.

"This community, which is North Korea's greatest critic," Leach observed, "could be expected to become its greatest facilitator of foreign trade."

Leach and Lantos were in North Korea – in Pyongyang and outside the capital – from August 30 to September 3.