CHINA
Documents & Texts from America.gov
30 June 2008
Secretary Rice in China Discusses Relations with North Korea
By David I. McKeeby
Staff Writer
Related:
• Secretary Rice Remarks With the Press in Beijing
Washington -- As the Six-Party Talks approach a new phase, stepped up diplomatic engagement will be key to realizing a nuclear weapons-free Korean Peninsula and improved regional security, said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a June 29 press conference with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Beijing. "We, I believe, stand at the threshold of turning an area that has been a source of conflict into a source of cooperation."
Rice’s visit followed North Korea’s June 26 submission to the Chinese government of an official declaration of its nuclear program. China is the chair of the Six-Party Talks, which also include Japan, Russia, South and North Korea and the United States. In a further gesture of its commitment, Pyongyang demolished the main cooling tower of its Yongbyon nuclear facility the following day.
The United States responded by announcing that it would lift a key trade sanction against Pyongyang and remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism within 45 days. (See “North Korea Nuclear Declaration Step in Right Direction, Says Bush.”)
But more progress is needed in the coming weeks, Rice said, as Six-Party envoys face the challenge of reviewing North Korea’s declaration document and fully verifying its claims before moving into the third and final phase of the process -- complete dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear weapons infrastructure and related programs.
“The North Koreans have already made available thousands of pages of documentation concerning the Yongbyon reactor and what was produced there,” Rice said in Kyoto, Japan, June 27. “We also need access to the reactor core. We need access to the waste pool so that we can indeed verify … how much plutonium has been made.”
“We believe that the parties need to work together to seize the opportunity, overcome the difficulties, and implement the remaining second-phase actions in a comprehensive and balanced way,” Yang said.
In addition, North Korea will be expected to answer questions about other elements of its nuclear past -- including a suspected uranium enrichment program similar to Iran’s, as well as Pyongyang’s cooperation with Syria and other countries seeking nuclear technologies, Rice said following June 28 consultations in Seoul, South Korea.
A long road remains ahead, Rice said, but North Korea’s continued cooperation on nuclear issues, as well as a resolution of human rights issues, including its abduction of Japanese citizens in the late 1970s, could set the stage for the country’s re-entry into the international mainstream.
“We consider the verification process that is about to begin to be one that is a six-party verification process and in which all parties need to be actively engaged,” Rice said.
Rice’s remarks in Japan, South Korea, and China are available from America.gov.
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