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Korea withdrawn from the IAEA?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withdrawn from the IAEA.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
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