20 November 2002
Transcript: Kelly Says No Final Decision on Status of N. Korea Agreed Framework
(Assistant Secretary of State's Nov. 19 press briefing) (4750)
The U.S. government has not made any final decision about the status
of its Agreed Framework with North Korea following North Korea's
admission that it has been working on a uranium enrichment program for
nuclear weapons, says a top U.S. official.
Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James
A. Kelly told reporters at a briefing November 19 at the Foreign Press
Center in Washington that "No final decisions have been made and no
final statements have been made by the U.S. Government" on the
agreement.
"The U.S. view on the Agreed Framework is that the North Koreans said
it was nullified and we guess it's been nullified. But we are not in
any rush to make decisions on all aspects of it," Kelly said.
Kelly said that North Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Kang Suk-joo
made it clear to him that North Korea's uranium enrichment program
"was something that North Korea was proceeding with" despite earlier
agreements to abandon such projects.
In response to a reporter's question, the Kelly said there are no U.S.
plans for a U.S. military response.
"When the President (Bush) was in South Korea last February, and in
some remarks since, he made clear that we had no intention or plans to
attack or invade North Korea," Kelly said.
North Korean officials, he said, "keep emphasizing a threat posture
which simply does not exist, and their sovereignty has not been
challenged" by the United States.
When asked if the United States was looking to China for help in
resolving the situation in North Korea, Kelly replied that "China has
not made any promises, and I have not made any demands, but we very
much hope that they can be helpful in resolving this serious problem."
He added that U.S. officials have "had some very good exchanges, quite
a number of them, with China on the problem of North Korea.... But
this is a private and sensitive matter for China, and I don't expect
that they are going to state exactly what they are going to do."
Following is the official transcript of the press briefing:
(begin transcript)
James A. Kelly,
Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
Foreign Press Center Briefing
Washington, DC
November 19, 2002
[Transcript Prepared by Diversified Reporting Services, Inc.]
MR. DENIG: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the
Foreign Press Center. We are delighted to have with us this afternoon
James Kelly, the Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific
Affairs.
The last one and a half months have been extraordinarily busy for him.
He has made three trips to the Northeast Asia region and he, of
course, also was down in Mexico for the APEC meeting and also in
Crawford for the bilateral summit.
We are delighted to have him here today to talk about developments in
the region. And I would ask you, when you pose your questions, to
please use the microphone, identify yourself and your news
organization. And I would encourage you, given the number of people
here, to keep your questions relatively brief so that we can have
longer answers.
Mr. Secretary.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: Thank you. I won't have an opening
statement today. We can go right to the questions.
QUESTION: I'm Marie-Hebert Feister (ph), Economic Review. Mr. Kelly,
there has been some confusion or disputing about what you were told
when you were in North Korea. Can you tell us again what Kang Suk-joo
told you in your meeting?
And secondly, can you talk a little bit about the evidence that you
presented, and particularly whether Pakistan was part of the equation,
as was reported in The Washington Post recently?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: On October 3rd and 4th, I visited North
Korea and I had four meetings there. Two of the meetings were with
Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye-guan, and one on Thursday, the 3rd, and
the other in the morning. These were quite long meetings where I made
my entire presentation and he made a presentation and we had a further
exchange. They were pretty close to about three hours long.
On the second day, which was scheduled to be the last full day of my
meetings there, I also met with Kim Yong-nam, the President of the
Supreme People's Assembly and the nominal president of North Korea.
And then the last meeting I had was with First Vice Foreign Minister
Kang Suk-joo.
And the initial meetings with Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye-guan, I
made my presentation which indicated that we now had a precondition
which we had not had in the past, which was that we had information
that North Korea had a covert uranium enrichment program and that this
was another way of proceeding towards nuclear weapons and that this
was a big problem for us and that they needed to dismantle it right
away before we could fully engage in a whole range of things that
might well be and might well still be mutually beneficial.
And I asked him not to reply right away, that it was a detailed
presentation, and I asked that they give full consideration to it and
reply after they had fully considered. But he insisted on replying
quite rapidly and said that my assertion was a fabrication and that it
was -- he didn't like it.
In the last meeting, though, with First Vice Foreign Minister Kang, I
never really gave my presentation. He spoke from the beginning. It
wasn't such a long meeting. And his remarks clearly showed -- there
were eight different mentions of the uranium enrichment project --
that this was something that North Korea was proceeding with, that
they considered the Agreed Framework nullified, and I would stress
that they said it was nullified because of assertions of U.S.
misbehavior, with which I do not agree. And that was essentially his
point.
And I did not confront him or the others with evidence of the uranium
enrichment program. I just said that we knew that they were doing it
and that this was a serious violation of numerous international
agreements and that it was causing a serious problem.
And so that was the genesis of the reply. It wasn't the convincing
nature of my evidence. To the best of my knowledge, the name of the
country Pakistan never came up during my two days there.
QUESTION: My name is Nai Chen-ma (ph) from Hong Kong Phoenix
Television. Mr. Kelly, with respect to China's relationship with North
Korea, do you believe China has significant leverage with North Korea
to convince it to stop its nuclear weapons program? And how does the
U.S. expect China to use its leverage with North Korea? And also, what
more could or should U.S. and China do to eliminate the threat?
Thank you.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: Well, I visited China most recently last
week. A week ago today, I was in China for talks. This was the second
time in the last month that I had visited China to discuss this topic.
I don't know how much influence China has with North Korea. I guess it
probably has more influence than the U.S. does -- because of a long
and friendly relationship -- but China has made it very clear that
they are not in favor of nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula and
so I think, in many respects, we share interests. North Korea has not
made -- or, I'm sorry, China has not made any promises and I have not
made any demands, but we very much hope that they can be helpful in
resolving this serious problem.
QUESTION: My name is T'ae yong Kim, Aram (ph) News Agency, Korea. The
US State Department has not officially announced that the Geneva
agreements between North Korea and the United States has been
scrapped, but the United States recently suspended the fuel shipment
to North Korea, which amounts to practical scrapping.
And what is your official position? What is the official position of
the State Department about the agreements?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: First of all, the US did not announce the
ending of the fuel shipments. That was announced by the Korean
Peninsula Energy Development Organization board of directors, which
includes the Republic of Korea, Japan, U.S. and the European Union, in
New York, I believe, last Thursday.
The US view on the Agreed Framework is that the North Koreans said it
was nullified and we guess it's been nullified. But we are not in any
rush to make decisions on all aspects of it. This is an agreement that
has acted for some eight years and there are a number of different
elements to it.
Among other things, of course, its very first paragraph suggests that
it's -- or asserts that it's aimed at preventing nuclear weapons on
the Korean Peninsula, and that's, of course, exactly the uranium
enrichment program that would constitute a violation of that. So no
final decisions have been made and no final statements have been made
by the US Government on that.
We did say that the current shipment that, I guess, is being delivered
now in North Korea is the last one for which there are funds, and I
think that statement speaks for itself.
QUESTION: My name is Yun (ph). I'm with the Kyunghyang Shinmun (ph),
Korean. Mr. Kelly, I want to ask you about a newspaper report this
morning which said that Bush administration will refrain from doing
anything drastic regarding North Korean policy before a new South
Korean president assumes office in January.
Also in the report, a high-ranking, senior government official said
that he hopes the new South Korean Government will scrap the Sunshine
Policy of outgoing President Kim Dae-jung. I want to ask you your
comment about this. And also, are you satisfied with the level of
support you're getting from South Korea regarding North Korean nuclear
issue?
Thank you.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: Was the official, an unnamed official in
the newspaper story, that you cited?
QUESTION: It didn't say anything about that.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: No, okay. So, it is very hard to comment
about statements made in news stories by unnamed officials. I'm here
as a named official. (Laughter.) And the fact is, I've visited Seoul
four times in the last month and a half. I think we have an excellent
level of cooperation.
And democratic countries have one president at a time, and the
President of the Republic of Korea is Mr. Kim Dae-jung; and as long as
he is President, I believe until the 23rd of February, he's
responsible for the government of that country, and that's the
government with which we will deal.
And so I wouldn't use the terms that that newspaper article said. As I
did say, we've had excellent cooperation from the Government of South
Korea and I would not associate myself with those other remarks.
QUESTION: My name is Hakajiri (ph) with Asahi Shimbun (ph) of Japan.
The KEDO executive board statement says that not only heavy fuel oil,
but also other KEDO activity with North Korea, will be reviewed. So
does this mean that the light-water reactor project could be abandoned
if North Korea doesn't dismantle the highly enriched uranium program?
Thank you very much.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: Well, I don't want to speculate on what
might or might not be done. I think that statement makes very clear
that all those activities that are under the control of the KEDO
executive board are going to come under review.
The only one that had to be reviewed because this shipment of oil was
actually at sea was the heavy fuel oil shipment for this month and
those coming up, certainly, over the next couple.
The support of the taxpayers of the Republic of Korea and of Japan
and, in the case of the heavy fuel, of the U.S.A. is essential to that
continuing on. And since the uranium enrichment program of North
Korea, not to mention some of their recent public assertions, is a
serious problem with written agreements, I think these questions
remain very much open, but I do not think that they have been fully
decided yet.
QUESTION: Hello. My name is Nakano (ph) from Nippon Television
Network. You said all that KEDO activities now come under review, but
as United States, do you consider any other penalties against North
Korea if the country does not stop developing nuclear weapons?
Thank you.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: I really can't speculate on what might
come. We've made very strong representations when I was in North Korea
and since that it's important that North Korea dismantle this uranium
enrichment program. There's no place for atomic bombs on the Peninsula
of Korea, and this does not, in my view, contribute to North Korea's
security.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, Steve Collinson with AFP. The Thai Government
has reacted rather angrily to a number of reports in U.S. and other
media about the potential for a terrorist attack similar to the Bali
bombing in Thailand in one of the beach resorts or Bangkok. I'm
interested to know what the U.S. position on the Thai Government's
antiterrorism measures are following the publication of these reports.
And in the same region, I would be interested to know your perception
on the dialogue process in Burma following the visit of Mr. Ismael,
Razali Ismael, last week and the apparent lack of any progress
following that visit.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: I think Thailand is doing an outstanding
job in pursuit of the war against terror. But this is a very difficult
campaign and every country, certainly including the U.S.A., has had
and may well continue to be having this exposure to terrorists. And
so, as a result of this and a result of things that have occurred in
Southeast Asia, it's necessary that we provide appropriate warning to
our citizens. It's just not fair to have these threats circulate
around and be handed in some closely held manner from one government
employee to another.
It's a requirement of our law and policy that what the government
knows about this sort of warning and threat has to be shared with our
citizens. And yes, I think there has been some unhappiness in Thailand
about the advisories that have been put out which in no case represent
a warning against travel to Thailand. They don't do that. They simply
state the conditions and the difficulties and ask that travelers be
mindful of that. And that also applies to most of the other countries
of Southeast Asia, as well. And the fact is, when tourism is a very
important local industry and something like this comes out, sometimes
the tendency is to criticize the messenger rather than the problem.
With respect to your question on Burma. Yes, Tan Sri Razali had, I
think, his ninth visit to Rangoon last week, and it appears as though
not a great deal of progress was made. I have to say there's -- hopes
had started to pick up with the progress of dialogue last summer and
it doesn't seem to be getting very far. There are still an awful lot
of political prisoners held and a lot of restrictions on freedom in
Burma that are of serious concern.
QUESTION: Central News Agency, Taiwan. I would like to press you a
little bit more on China. Given China's connection to North Korea and
given their stated position on nukes, or no nukes on the Peninsula,
and given the improvement in the ties between the U.S. and China, one
would have thought that the U.S. would expect Beijing to do a little
bit more in terms of helping to cope with the situation in North
Korea. I'm wondering whether you can elaborate a little bit on your
discussion with the Chinese officials.
And if I may ask you a question about Taiwan, your good friend C. J.
Chen, Taiwan's representative to the U.S., is now in Taiwan facing
some tough questions about an incident which happened on September
26th involving our first lady, Madame Chen, at Dulles Airport. I'm
wondering whether you could tell us a little bit about how the U.S.
handled that incident in which Madame Chen was subjected to some
security check and whether you could confirm press reports from Taiwan
that Secretary Powell called President Chen to offer his apology or
regret.
Thank you.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: With respect to the first question, I don't
think it's helpful to try to describe expectations. The fact is, we've
had some very good exchanges, quite a number of them, with China on
the problem of North Korea. I was -- I left there quite encouraged.
But this is a private and sensitive matter for China and I don't
expect that they are going to state exactly what they are going to do.
So my purpose of being there was to describe to them in considerable
detail what our position was on these things and what our recent
discussions had been in Seoul and Tokyo and our views about the things
that North Korea had said and the evidence we had of things that they
were doing. And I received very serious attention to those issues.
With respect to the visit of Madame Wu, the First Lady of Taiwan, it's
my understanding that she had a very excellent visit here.
I wasn't at Dulles airport and I'm not able to report on the details
there, but if there's anyone here who has not had to remove their
shoes at the airport or undergo a very careful security check -- well,
I certainly have had to go through that.
Now, I'm not the First Lady of Taiwan, and we very much hope that
representatives and those important people from friendly places
receive a warm welcome. But there have been a number of cases, quite
understandable, I think, given the very strong security procedures, in
fact, in which for one problem of communication or another, that tight
security procedures have been used against distinguished visitors.
There's been a lot of press attention, for example, to that in
Malaysia, recently, too.
So, that said, I don't think I would comment any further, other than
we're very concerned that our visitors here have a uniformly
respectful reception at all times. And Secretary Powell certainly
shares that view with me.
QUESTION: Now that the 16th Party Congress in China is over -- oh, I'm
sorry. Charles Snyder of the Taipei Times.
Now that the 16th Party Congress is over, do you get a sense, does the
administration get a sense that there might be any change in the new
Chinese leadership and their policies at all towards Taiwan?
And during the -- just before the 16th Party Congress, during the --
around the time of the summit, a number of Chinese ships apparently
violated Taiwan space. Is the administration concerned over those, and
did the President mention that during his meeting with Jiang Zemin?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: I'm not aware of the details that you
mentioned about a number, especially, of war ships, encroaching into
what you described as Taiwan space.
I don't think -- I can't really identify anything in the 16th Party
Congress. This is something for people like yourselves to analyze. The
process went on, I think, largely as it had been suggested that it
would. We look forward to working with the new leaders of China, and
that's really about all that I can say.
I didn't detect anything in the remarks that were made last week,
privately or publicly, that would suggest any difference in the views
of the PRC towards Taiwan.
QUESTION: Kigan Go (ph) with (inaudible) Times, Korea.
Secretary Colin Powell yesterday said that United States recognized
the sovereignty of North Korea. Is it your official position to
recognize the North Korean Government or regime?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: Yes. I don't want to get tangled in
language about diplomatic recognition, but yes, we recognize they're a
member-state of the United Nations. I don't think that there's
something else. We have a lot of serious problems with the government,
but I think the context of what Secretary Powell said was really
referring to all of the statements that have been coming from North
Korea that keep talking about threats, and there really haven't been
any threats.
When the President was in South Korea last February, and in some
remarks since, he made clear that we had no intention or plans to
attack or invade North Korea. They keep emphasizing a threat posture
which simply does not exist, and their sovereignty has not been
challenged. Their behavior has been what has been challenged and this
violation of written treaties in pursuing the development of nuclear
weapons.
QUESTION: John Zhan with Power TV of Taiwan.
Sir, just to follow up on the previous question my colleague here just
asked, could you confirm that Secretary Powell called President Chen
Shui-bian to apologize for the incident, and, if you could, what did
he apologize for?
Thank you very much.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: No, I can't confirm it and I won't confirm
it.
QUESTION: Chris Cockel, from The China Post of Taiwan.
How, if at all, do you believe the recently passed defense
authorization bill, which seeks stronger U.S.-Taiwan relations, will
impact U.S.-Taiwan-China relations?
Thank you.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: It's my understanding that the defense
authorization bill requires a report, I believe, from the President to
the Congress, and I take that as an expression of a view that's been
very well and very long held by the Congress and is articulated, in
particular, in the Taiwan Relations Act that expresses very strong
concern that military pressure and military threats not be brought
onto Taiwan. And that's certainly something that is very much shared
by the U.S., and I'm sure that the reports that the Congress has
requested will be forwarded to them at the appropriate time.
QUESTION: Secretary Kelly, Nadia Chow with The Liberty Times. There
are two questions that have never been confirmed by the U.S.
Government.
After the Crawford meeting, Chinese media reported that President Bush
accepted invitation to visit China next year for the third time. And
also, a Xinhua News Agency report President Bush told President Jiang
that he opposed Taiwan independence, but which in the official
conference he used to not support.
We're just wondering, can we confirm are these true, or actually you
have a different version from the Chinese report?
Thanks.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: The press conference that was held in
Crawford with the two presidents, at that time President Bush
expressed our policy, that we do not support Taiwan independence.
There has been no change in American policy and there was no change in
the meeting or out of the meeting with respect to our position on
Taiwan.
The fact is, the President cited our longstanding policies, the
communiqués, the Taiwan Relations Act, to peaceful resolution, those
elements that have always gone into our statements before. And I think
it would be a mistake to try to parse every single word uttered
privately and publicly and to try to juxtapose those and try to
interpret a change of policy when clearly there has not been a change
of policy.
What was the other part?
QUESTION: The invitation.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: Oh, the invitation.
Yes, there was an invitation to the President to come to visit China.
I'm not certain that it had a particular time and I'm not certain that
the President's reply, which was, I think, a general appreciation for
that invitation, had any particular date on it. So that I think it
would probably be a mistake to pencil in a particular visit of the
President to Taiwan for 2003. But I think he does have some hope or
expectation --
QUESTION: (Inaudible.)
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: I'm sorry.
(Laughter.)
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: Yeah. Let me try to be clear. To Beijing.
The President, of course, visited Shanghai a year ago, and he visited
Beijing last February. And I don't know when he will visit China
anywhere, including Beijing, again, and I don't think there's any
commitment to do so in 2003.
QUESTION: Ch'oe (ph) from South Korea's Munhwa Broadcasting.
North Korea and Japan again. There's some controversy what Kang
Suk-joo had said to you, and even though your remark. The former
Ambasador Donald Gregg said that Kang Suk-joo did not admit HEU
program in North Korea. They just said that they are entitled to
develop nuclear program, not -- they are not comment on HEU.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: Let me say this about that.
First, Vice Minister Kang Suk-joo definitely admitted that North Korea
was pursuing a uranium enrichment program; and (b), he did say, and
there have been subsequent public statements, that North Korea is
entitled to a nuclear weapons program. Excuse me. North Korea is not
entitled to a nuclear weapons program because they signed the
Nonproliferation Treaty in 1985. So that this is an ongoing signal of
a violation of a treaty to which North Korea is a party.
QUESTION: Do you have verbatim of what Kang Suk-joo had said to you?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: Yes, I do, and I don't intend to release
it.
QUESTION: May I have one more question, please?
There's some news organizations' reports on KEDO, that -- actually I
would like to elaborate the news organization, NSK, Japanese media,
and The Washington Times in this town -- US will be back off from KEDO
and dismantling KEDO system and then United States is scheming new
framework for targeting the US nuclear program.
What is your position on that?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: Would you restate that question, because I,
frankly, did not understand exactly what you were saying?
QUESTION: United States does not have an intention to be involved in
KEDO.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: That's not our position at this time.
MR. DENIG: We have time for one last question.
QUESTION: Marion Wilkinson from The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.
On Monday, the Australian Government issued a new terrorist threat
about a potential attack in Australia. I wonder if you could tell us,
was that new threat regional or, to your knowledge, just confined to
Australia; and what prompted it, to your knowledge; and what advice
are U.S. citizens traveling to Australia being given?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: I have to confess, I'm probably not as -- I
am aware that there was this threat, and it's my understanding that it
was within Australia, and that it was given the notice that you
describe. I'm not aware if we have changed our website about travelers
to Australia or not. It's certainly one of a series of the threats
that I was referring to earlier that we would take very seriously.
MR. DENIG: We have time for one more quick one.
QUESTION: Hi, Mr. Kelly. I am Tada Stabato (ph), TV Asahi, Japan.
My question is about Charles Robert Jenkins, who defected to North
Korea and married a Japanese abductee there.
Jenkins said recently in an interview in a magazine that he wants to
go to Japan in 2005 because the statute of limitation on his desertion
will run out this year. Could you tell me, what is the United States
Government's policy with regard to him?
And one more question. When you went to Japan, you were asked by
Shinzo Abe, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, if amnesty would be
granted to Jenkins. How will you deal with this request?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY KELLY: Mr. Abe, the Deputy Chief Cabinet
Secretary, we did discuss the case of Mr. Jenkins. I don't recall him
making the particular request that you describe, and there are some
ongoing discussions.
Mr. Jenkins disappeared -- apparently walked to North Korea on his
own, many, many years ago. We have tried to be in contact with him
over the years by making requests in North Korea, and have never,
never been in contact. It takes Japanese journalists to do that.
So there remain serious charges under the law that are there on Mr.
Jenkins, and I think they're going to have to be resolved whenever he
chooses to return. I hope he wouldn't wait that long, but we're not
able to make any assurances before a full investigation would be made
whenever the condition or whenever the gentleman would present
himself.
And thank you very much, I will look forward to coming back again some
time.
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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