Morning Walk-Through, St. Regis Hotel, Beijing, China -- September 28, 2007

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  Hi. Heading out to Diaoyutai.  I think we have a meeting of the heads of delegation at 9 o’clock.

QUESTION:  Last night you mentioned about that you and the North Koreans have agreed with most of disablement measures.  Is that notion shared by the other colleagues as well?  

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  I think – No, you weren’t listening.  I said that when the experts went to the DPRK they agreed on the feasibility of the number of steps that could be taken to disable.  And so that has to be reported to the Six Parties, and the Six Parties need to decide whether those are adequate or whether some other things need to be done.  I would say that there are a lot of them there that obviously are adequate, but I would say it’s also fair to say we’d like to see more.  

QUESTION: How will the terrorism list issue be mentioned in the new statement?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  We’ve discussed that issue as something the DPRK has asked about and wants to see at a certain point.  So obviously that sort of thing is under discussion as they go deeper into denuclearization.

QUESTION:  What do you want in terms of the statement?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  Well the idea of this session -- And we’re expecting the Chinese to circulate a text today, a joint statement text.  Although I say we’re expecting, it hasn’t been.  It’s not officially known yet.  I think the idea is to try to lay out a sort of roadmap to the end of the year.

QUESTION:  Except what the experts [inaudible] when they were up in Pyongyang, have the North Koreans tentatively agreed to those steps or is there --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  I think the DPRK has agreed to some steps.  And I think we looked at some of these steps, what they’ve agreed to, and frankly we’d like more and they’d like less.  And let’s see what we end up with.  But we don’t have an agreement on what constitutes disabling yet.  We have to hear from the experts.  We’ve all gotten our own reports from the experts, but they will be I think presenting to the Six-Parties very soon.

QUESTION:  Have you raised the issue of Syria at all?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  Let me just say, we have raised the issue very forcefully on the overall question of proliferation and the need to do something about proliferation.  But that’s a generalized issue that we have been raising for some time now.

QUESTION:  Can you elaborate a little bit more on the agreement on what constitutes disablement?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  Well, again, disabling is a step on the way toward complete dismantling.  And for disabling to be meaningful, it has to involve a concept of it being difficult for the DPRK to reconstitute nuclear programs.  Again, it’s not to be confused with dismantling, where you take them apart irreversibly.  So it’s a step on that way.  But it has to be difficult.  So it’s something short of dismantling, but something more than shutting down.  

And we’ve had in mind the concept that it should be 12 months or so, so that if you wanted to reconstitute the program it would take you many months, say 12 months, to try to get things back and running.  You recall that, without any disabling, the North Koreans back in 2002, beginning of 2003, were able to get the plant running again within two months.  And that was without disabling.  So, obviously, we’re looking for something that’s a lot more than two months.

QUESTION:  Has Syria been mentioned at all, or will it be mentioned?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  I think I just answered that.  We’ve talked generally about the issue of proliferation.  Obviously, proliferation is a major reason why we have the Six-Party process in the first place.  And so we have to keep working on that and to make sure that, as we go forward, it is understood that there can not be proliferation -- because these issues have to be taken with great seriousness.

QUESTION:  Will you be able to agree on a date for the ministerial?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  You know, I hope so.  There’s a consensus on having a ministerial.  I think everyone is ready to do it.  But it’ll be up to the ministers’ calendars.  So I think we’ll probably look at some dates and see if we can arrange that.

QUESTION:  Do you expect to spend more time on declaration today than you do on disablement?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  I don’t know.  We’ll see.  They are two obviously very important things, and we don’t have agreement on either yet.  But I think we’ll have a good discussion about it in the heads of delegation, and we’ll see what consensus positions can emerge -- especially with our expectation that the Chinese will circulate a draft which we hope will capture a consensus position on both those issues.

QUESTION: Your schedule today?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  I’m sure there will be bilats.  We’ll all be out there, I’m sure.  Nothing is scheduled in advance.

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