THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary _____________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release June 13, 1994 PRESS BRIEFING BY DEE DEE MYERS The Briefing Room 2:52 P.M. EST MS. MYERS: I apologize. I wish I had more for you, given the delay. I was actually -- we were trying to produce a little more on the situation in North Korea. Let me just begin by saying the President spoke a while ago to President Yeltsin. They discussed a number of issues, including North Korea, the Partnership for Peace, the upcoming Naples Summit, and President Yeltsin's trip to the United States later this year. Generally, they had a good conversation. They discussed their general approach to sanctions against North Korea and a number of other things. So the conversation lasted about 25 minutes; the President was in the Oval Office. That's it for announcements. Q his call this morning? Q Who called who? MS. MYERS: I'm sorry. President Clinton placed the call. It was agreed upon earlier. Q Did anything come out of it other than just the list of topics that you can tell us? MS. MYERS: Well, again, they discussed at some length -- they discussed a number of topics. They certainly discussed North Korea at some length. They agreed on a general approach to sanctions to the U.N. Security Council action to moving forward on that front, and I think that's part of the ongoing consultation on developing a sanctions proposal. The President has not yet made a final decision; we do expect that there will be more discussion this week, leading to some kind of a decision and an ongoing discussion at the Security Council. Q Dee Dee, can you give us something on Xiang? MS. MYERS: The phone call didn't take place. As you know, the President's had contacts with a number of heads of state, both telephone and in person and written. The President's going to send a letter to President Xiang in China sometime probably later today. Q Why didn't the phone call take place? MS. MYERS: It was a scheduling problem. They weren't able to work it out today and decided to go ahead and do it in written form as opposed to a telephone call. Q Dee Dee, to the best of your knowledge, has North Korea withdrawn from the IAEA? MS. MYERS: To the best of our knowledge, we've seen the statement from North Korea on that. We don't have any confirmation of it. We're still trying to determine what has happened in that regard. So we don't have any confirmation that they have actually withdrawn from the IAEA. .................. Q How will the withdrawal, if indeed it has taken place, from IAEA affect the sanctions situation? Does it make it easier to get other people on board? And what's your analysis of what this means in terms of whether it increases the danger of confrontation? Or how are you reading it? MS. MYERS: Well, again, if it's true, it's a very, very serious situation. It's a very negative development. But at this point, we have no confirmation, so I can't speculate about what may happen if it's in fact true. We have seen the statements from North Korea; we take them very seriously. Again, this would be a negative development. But beyond that, I can't comment at this point. ............... Q Back on North Korea. What is the procedure for withdrawing from the IAEA, do you know? MS. MYERS: I don't know that there's any formal procedure. Q Well, I'm just wondering -- you say you can't confirm at this point -- MS. MYERS: Oh, usually there's written notification or some kind of an official contact between North Korea and the IAEA at some level. And to the best of our knowledge, we don't know that that has happened yet, I should say. Q Do you know if those two IAEA inspectors are still in North Korea? MS. MYERS: Last we heard they were. No evidence to suggest that they're gone, but, obviously, that could change quickly. ............. THE PRESS: Thank you. END 3:15 P.M. EDT #176-06/13
