Departure Statement October 31

Remarks by Christopher R. Hill
Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
Night Departure, Din Tai Fung Restaurant
Beijing, China
October 31, 2007

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  Wow, you guys!  Did you get any dinner or anything?

QUESTION:  How did the talks go?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  This wasn’t a negotiating session.  This was just a discussion about the current phase that we are in and the need to keep making progress.  And so it was a good discussion in that regard.  I think we are looking forward to getting through these very busy two months.  We talked about all aspects of it -- the disablement aspect; we also talked about having the ministerial during this timeframe.  I thought, importantly, we talked about moving into the next year and really getting this job done.  So it was a good discussion.

QUESTION:  How was the atmosphere?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  The atmosphere was very good, very business-like, very good.

QUESTION:  Did you make any more progress on the outstanding dismantlement issues.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  We are in pretty good shape on this disablement.  Dismantlement will come at the beginning of the new year.  But I think we are really in sync on the disablement.  We understand we have a lot of work ahead of us.

QUESTION:  Do you have a discussion tomorrow, as well?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  No.  Tomorrow I think I’m going to go out to Beijing University to speak to some Chinese students.  Then I have to get on the plane and head off to Seoul, and after Seoul I’ll go to Tokyo.

QUESTION:  Do [inaudible] more discussion on the terrorism list?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL:  No, we discussed that this morning, so we really didn’t have much to talk about tonight.  I think the plan is to discuss what the requirements are and to move ahead from there.

Okay?  So, we’ll see you all later.

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