ACCESSION NUMBER:348159
FILE ID:EPF405
DATE:06/09/94
TITLE:GALLUCCI: U.S. WILL NOT WALK AWAY FROM NKOREA NUCLEAR PROBLEM (06/09/94)
TEXT:*94060905.EPF
*EPF405 06/09/94
GALLUCCI: U.S. WILL NOT WALK AWAY FROM NKOREA NUCLEAR PROBLEM
(Article on House Foreign Affairs Panel hearing June 9) (530)
Robert F. Holden
USIA Staff Writer
Washington -- Even if current U.S. efforts to get the U.N. Security Council
to enact sanctions against North Korea for its failure to allow nuclear
inspections fail, the United States will not walk away from the North Korea
nuclear problem, according to Assistant Secretary of State Robert Gallucci.
In testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and
Pacific Affairs June 9, Gallucci said the United States did not intend to
have its policy of seeking U.N. sanctions fail. But if it did, he said,
"We would act together with other states in the region to take actions to
bring pressure upon the North Koreans."
"The North Koreans must realize that we will not allow them to simply get
away with it," he said.
In the meantime, however, Gallucci said the United States will continue to
build international support for U.N. Security Council sanctions.
"North Korea has deliberately and unnecessarily destroyed important
historical evidence that has seriously eroded the IAEA's ability to verify
past plutonium production in North Korea," Gallucci said.
"This act," he said "undercuts the basis of our dialogue with the North. We
will not continue that dialogue until a reasonable basis for it can be
established."
Consultations on U.N. sanctions began during a Permanent Five meeting June
6, Gallucci said. "We expect the process to continue over the next few
weeks."
Gallucci said there was a "firm international coalition" supporting
sanctions, including Japan and Russia. "We expect the Russian position to
be very close to our own," Gallucci said, "and we hope to have the Chinese
together with us in the Security Council; I cannot predict what they will
do."
Gallucci denied a recent New York Times story which said Japan had offered
strong resistance to U.S. proposals for sanctions. "I do not believe that
story is accurate and the Japanese government has assured us that it is not
accurate," he said.
The North Korean nuclear program is a threat to U.S. national security
interest in three areas, Gallucci said.
First, he said, it is a threat to the "profound, solid" U.S. security
1ommitment to South Korea, and the 37,000 U.S. ground forces stationed
there.
Second, he said, North Korean power projection in five years, once its
nuclear and ballistic missiles programs come to fruition, pose a serious
threat to the U.S. vision for security in Asia.
Finally, he said, those programs will give rise to an "unending problem" of
North Korea as the seller of nuclear materials and missile technology to
other regions of the world.
To support that claim, Gallucci confirmed to the committee that the United
States has evidence of previous sales of North Korean missile technology --
scud missiles and scud launchers -- to Syria and Iran. Additional
transfers are being contemplated, he said.
"There are very fundamental U.S. security interests involved here," Gallucci
said. "Our policy is to pursue our course at the U.N."
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