U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE DAILY PRESS BRIEFING JUNE 23, 1994 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE DAILY PRESS BRIEFING I N D E X Thursday, June 23, 1994 Briefer: Michael McCurry ................. NORTH KOREA Third Round of High-Level Talks ................. 12-14,17-18 Assistant Secretary Gallucci Discussions in Vienna 13 IAEA Inspection Activities ...................... 13 Conditions--Nuclear Program Freeze .............. 15-16,18 Secretary Christopher Discussions with Foreign Ministers Han, Kozyrev, and Kakizawa .......... 17 ............................ DEPARTMENT OF STATE DAILY PRESS BRIEFING DPC #97 THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 1994, 1:26 P.M. (ON THE RECORD UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED) .................. Q North Korea also. The President said yesterday that the Geneva talks would take up a full range of security, economic, and political discussions. Is diplomatic recognition of North Korea now part of these discussions? Could you tell us more about that agenda? What our goals are going to be? MR. McCURRY: I don't want to get too precisely into the agenda itself. By the President saying the status of our political, economic, and security relations, certainly the status of our diplomatic relations falls within that general rubric. I don't want to specify agenda items because, frankly, there has not been an agenda drawn up. By the way, there are to be, through the New York channel at some point in the next couple of days, a meeting at that level -- at sort of the working level -- to flesh out the exact agenda, or at least to begin to put some structure to the dialogue that would occur next month at a third round of high level talks. Q Are you saying this meeting could be tomorrow? MR. McCURRY: It could be today or tomorrow or whenever they can work it out. Q Could you (inaudible) ideas what ought to be on the agenda? How about the missiles? Is that something -- you know, the broad and thorough -- MR. McCURRY: I think the DPRK has indicated they have security issues they would like to see discussed in the context of a broad and thorough dialogue. We have security issues as well. Certainly, among them, first and foremost, would be a resolution of the nuclear issue and a discussion about the history of North Korea's nuclear program. But we certainly would seek to have, in the context of a third round, a discussion about security issues; it would also include conventional armament, balance of power in the theatre, and the types of security concerns that you can obviously imagine that would be a part of any broad and thorough dialogue. Q You haven't said missiles -- missiles, as to Syria? MR. McCURRY: MTCR-related transactions would be an issue that we want -- Q (Inaudible) MR. McCURRY: That type of transaction, Barry; missile transfers to Iran and Syria, we've indicated in the past is a source of great concern to us. It certainly is the kind of issue that you would expect a broad and thorough dialogue to continue without, of course, specifying that there is any specific agenda at this point. Q Have you heard from Gallucci? Have you gotten a readout from him? MR. McCURRY: I haven't. The Secretary talked to him a short while ago. He had a very good meeting with Director General Blix at the IAEA today. He had been scheduled, I think as you know, to be in Vienna, in any event, when we received the response from North Korea yesterday. They report that he had a very good session today in Vienna covering the status of IAEA monitoring and safeguards presence in North Korea. They discussed the upcoming third round as well. Q When is he coming back? MR. McCURRY: When is he coming back? I don't know the answer to that. Q Do you know if the inspectors got to the reprocessing plant? Evidently, they got to the reactor. They've been promised they can see the sites -- storage facilities, particularly. MR. McCURRY: I have seen sort of only sketchy information on their inspection activity. I think the quality of the information they've been able to generate has been sufficient to satisfy our need to know that there's been no activity in that program related to refueling or reprocessing. But specifically what they've done at the site I'd refer you to the IAEA, which should really reasonably talk about the activity of their own inspectors. Yes, Victor. Q President Carter mentioned last night that a light-water reactor was very much on the minds of the North Koreans and that we might try and put together some package for helping them get one. Is that going to be? MR. McCURRY: At the time we had our second round of high-level talks between the U.S. and the DPRK about a year ago, I guess, or maybe July a year ago, we did indicate that we were interested in discussing with them a move away from graphite-moderated reactor technology into light-water reactors for the reason that that technology produces less weapons-grade material as a by-product of the reaction and thus would be a lesser risk of proliferation from our perspective. So that's a technology in a sense that serves some purposes that we would seek as well. And it is something that I believe North Korea has expressed a very direct interest in receiving. So we would see in a third round that that would be a subject of discussion. Q But we're now willing to pay for it. MR. McCURRY: I don't want to get into how they acquire the technology and under what circumstances, and who pays the bill is obviously something that we'd leave to a third round of talks. Q Mike, when you were asked about Jordan before you made some reference to wanting to help their economy. Do you have any appraisals -- U.S., I mean, appraisal -- of Jordan's economic situation, or did the King tell a sad story while he was here, because you remember they were cut off for supporting Iraq. You didn't like him then; you've gotten to like him again. MR. McCURRY: He, I believe -- Q What's their economics -- what's their situation now? Are they on the rocks -- MR. McCURRY: I don't have a -- Q -- are they closing some of the palaces, or what? MR. McCURRY: I don't have a full assessment of the economic conditions in Jordan with me here. The most recent discussion we've had with Jordan that I'm aware of -- well, I'll take that back. The Secretary and both the President had some discussions since then. But our discussions have been about the impact of the multilateral interdiction force and some of the economic damage they were suffering as a result of the sanctions enforcement effort in the Gulf of Aqaba; and we, as you know, have attempted to address that issue. Q There seems to be a little bit of a misunderstanding about what the meaning of freezing of the nuclear program in North Korea exactly entails. Does this mean that they're freezing the reprocessing -- freezing the refueling -- or are we looking at, also, trying to freeze all construction of the 200-megawatt reactor and the other new processing plants? MR. McCURRY: As the President indicated last night, and as we've said to them consistently, our interest is in freezing major elements of their program, specifically, and we wanted to make sure that they would neither reload the 5-megawatt experimental reactor with any new fuel nor reprocess the spent fuel that has now been removed from the reactor core and that we would permit inspections for the continuity of safeguards -- including the presence of IAEA inspectors at the facility and, obviously, the continuation of certain surveillance through the equipment that the IAEA has in place at the Yongbyon facility. Those are the very, very precise aspects of the freeze that we asked for in their nuclear program; and they have now been confirmed in great detail by the DPRK. Q So we're not looking, of course, at a freeze in construction. MR. McCURRY: Issues like the second reactor, issues like the reprocessing facility, issues like inspections at the special sites that we're concerned about that may hold some key to the mystery or the history of the program are issues that we have said in the past we would seek to explore in a third round. And the DPRK has acknowledged that those are issues that would be within the purview of the program. Q A quick follow-up on that also, if I could. MR. McCURRY: Yes. Q John Holum at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency came out yesterday and seemed to imply that the United States' position would be something more along the lines of "Well, let's worry about the future; let's worry about the present. And as far as the past goes -- the l989 refueling and other such issues -- well, maybe it can be some kind of South Africa model where we'll have a continuing dialogue" -- MR. McCURRY: I'm not -- Q -- "and some problems will be worked out in good time." MR. McCURRY: I'm not familiar with those remarks, but that interpretation of them strikes me as curious. We are, as we have said in the past, very interested in knowing more about the history of the program because our goal, as you know, is a non-nuclear Korean peninsula. So the history of the program, the context in which there may have been prior reprocessing of plutonium is very much an issue that we would seek to explore in a third round of high-level talks. Q I forget whether there was a time limit involved, for technical reasons, in terms of determining the historical record from the spent fuel. Do you recall -- MR. McCURRY: Is there a point at which the spent fuel rods decay? You can no longer measure the radioactivity or however they do that. I'm not a technical expert on that. I believe there is a certain period in which you lose the ability to do that, but in any event remember that the IAEA has said that ability to reconstruct the history by looking at the spent fuel rods has already been lost and is now irretrievable. Q Right. MR. McCURRY: That is their view. Q I'd like to clarify about North Korean status at NPT. When they had written back the confirmation about the three conditions for resuming the talks, they specifically stated that they would return to NPT without any preconditions? MR. McCURRY: I think it would be more accurate to say that they felt they wanted to make clear to us that they were willing to discuss, within the framework of a DPRK-U.S. dialogue, steps that they could take to fully implement the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and, as well, the Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA. Q There's a side to the matter to interpret that they would return to the normal member status before the talks. MR. McCURRY: In a less precise way, it would be accurate to say they hold open the possibility of a dialogue that would include a return to full-scope safeguards -- well, I shouldn't say that; at least, the Safeguards Agreement that they have in place with the IAEA -- and a discussion of fully implementing requirements under the NPT. I think it would be accurate to say that that's something that is foreseen within the third round. Q Just quickly, are you planning any consultations with Asian allies like -- MR. McCURRY: Yes. Q -- Japan and Korea? MR. McCURRY: Thank you very much for asking. I should have got into that earlier. The Secretary did last night, on the way home from Brussels, have discussions with Foreign Minister Han of South Korea, Foreign Minister Kozyrev of Russia, and Foreign Minister Kakizawa of Japan. They were all useful in that, first, the Secretary was able to inform all three of the response by the DPRK to the U.S. letter; and, second, they were able to use that discussion to really begin to build a framework of consultations for the upcoming third round. I'd stress that in every step along the way in dealing with this crisis we have used very careful and precise diplomacy to first build international support for a sanctions effort within the work we were doing at the United Nations, and we will use exactly that same type of approach now in building a common understanding and foundation for the type of dialogue that we now seek to have with the DPRK. I'll come back; let's get one that hasn't had a chance. Q The day before yesterday, the Greek Minister of Defense, I believe, met Mr. Tarnoff; and according to the press reports, he brought some ideas on the Aegean air space and territorial waters. And, also, did they discuss the Greek embargo against Macedonia and some border trade with Serbia against the U.N. sanctions? MR. McCURRY: Did you get to do a readout on this Tarnoff meeting? (TO STAFF) You've haven't seen it? I haven't seen anything on it. We'll try to -- Q Can you -- MR. McCURRY: -- get something for you on that, sure. Yes. Charlie? Q Mike, on a different subject, has anybody at the Department of State talked to young Michael Fay since he's back, or since he's left Singapore? MR. McCURRY: We did -- didn't you do a rundown? (TO STAFF) Since we've been gone the last two days, I'm not sure how much they got into it. I think we did say last night that they did have some contact with him in Singapore. I don't know if anyone from the Department here has talked to him or not. Q Do you know whether he's waived any of his privacy rights? Is there anything you can tell us publicly? MR. McCURRY: I can't. I think he has a legal representative; his family who's been quoted fairly extensively, so they have been discussing him. Q Mike, if I could -- MR. McCURRY: O.K. Q -- on this issue of communication from North Korea last night, my question is: Has the Secretary, has the President and this Government, confirmed that North Korea has a very clear -- a positively clear idea -- of what we are requiring in the freeze? From their response, would you say that they are completely clear? MR. McCURRY: I would say the importance of this issue has required the United States to be very precise, very careful, in how we have formed certain questions that we posed to the DPRK; and the answers that have come back are satisfactory in that they specifically address the types of concerns that we raised, and our ability to make sure that we can verify those things that have been assured by the DPRK was a feature embodied in that exchange as well. So I would say, yes, we are quite satisfied that their response was detailed enough. I'm sorry. We got another question back here. Q Do you think the meeting in Geneva is going to be on the 8th? There are reports that it's going to take place on the 8th, but the White House won't confirm it. MR. McCURRY: We have had a good exchange with the DPRK on dates. I wouldn't say that the 8th is not something under discussion; I wouldn't say that the 6th wasn't under discussion. I wouldn't say anything about the date at this point. But it's not a bad two numbers to look at. ................... (Briefing Concluded at 2:07 p.m.) (###)
