THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release June 22, 1994
BACKGROUND BRIEFING
BY
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL
June 22, 1994
The Briefing Room
6:10 P.M. EDT
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: You may have some very
specific questions about what exactly happened. I'll be glad to take
those. Let me first say that the President announced to you what the
North Koreans have confirmed now as the arrangement during the course
of the talks and what it means to -- that they will verifiably freeze
the major elements of the nuclear program during those talks.
Let me just speak very briefly about what those talks
might cover -- or will cover. The North Koreans have told us
previously and again through President Carter that they are
particularly interested in the light-water reactor which would then
mean that they could abandon their much less proliferation resistant
current nuclear technology, and that they are interested in
assurances against the use of nuclear weapons against them.
We will be pursuing in these talks, obviously, the
nuclear issue. And as somebody mentioned here with the President,
that very much includes not only the future of their nuclear program,
but what has happened in the past, in 1989 and since, including the
issue of special inspections.
In that regard, let me add something to what the
President said, and that is that they have informed us that in the
context of an overall solution that they will fully implement the
nonproliferation treaty and IAEA safeguards. And if we can negotiate
that as a part of this -- of an overall solution, that would be a
very significant move.
Questions.
Q Can you tell us what you think brought about this
cave-in? And also, can you give us a little chronology of who --when
we got the message, how we got the message, and who will negotiate
for us?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: As the President has
said, I don't think we should characterize what they have done, and I
would not characterize it as you did. I think it is very hard for us
to say why they have taken this very important step. They don't
confide in us their motives -- never have, never will.
What we can say is that there are some facts here. And
the facts are that we have persisted over the last year or more in
the course that we have undertaken. And let me simply emphasize that
that persistence, which has been very steady -- and I have said to a
number of you in the past that we shouldn't be optimistic or
pessimistic, particularly at any single point. What we need to do is
to keep testing the possibilities and persist in pursuing our
interests and goals here. And as the President said, that is exactly
what we will continue to do. This is an important opening, but there
is a lot of work ahead now in the negotiations themselves.
So one fact is that we have pursued that, I think,
steady course. A second fact is that after the June 3rd IAEA
statement, we began consultations on sanctions at the United Nations
Security Council. A third fact is that President Carter went to
North Korea and offered them a means of reaching an agreement like
this, and conveyed to the North Korean leadership at the very top --
something that is not easy to do -- what the American policy was.
And the result of those three facts is that we now have reached this
basis for entering into the third round of talks.
What specifically happened -- last Monday night, our
time, very late in the night, after consultations with the South
Koreans, Ambassador Gallucci sent a written message to his
counterpart in these negotiations, Vice Foreign Minister Kang, a
message seeking to confirm what President Carter had conveyed to us.
This afternoon, I believe around 2:00 p.m. our time, through their
mission in New York, the Vice Foreign Minister's written reply was
received; and it is as we have stated it.
We are now in the process of going back to the North
Koreans at a working level in New York to work out the dates -- or
the date for the initiation for this third round of talks, which will
take place in Geneva. We would anticipate it would be in early July
at some point. And then the talks themselves would be led by
Ambassador Gallucci on our side, who has been and remains the head of
our delegation.
Q Two questions. One is, what will the U.S.
negotiating position be regarding the question of previous activity
in 1989 or since? What will the U.S. demand? And what will you say
to allegations, charges that already today in the President's
statement, his position on President Carter's mission has changed,
that he was much more supportive in his remarks about President
Carter's mission and about how much coordination there was between
the administration and President Carter?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Let me take those in
order, and let me address the second one first. The fact is that
when President Clinton spoke to President Carter on Sunday morning,
he thanked him, told him that he thought he had served well in what
he had done. President Carter, as I recall, then quoted him --
President Clinton -- over the weekend, and since -- we could go back
and look at it -- has been quite positive about what President Carter
had done.
What he kept saying and what was accurate was that
President Carter had created here an opportunity that we were going
to explore. I remember saying that myself. And that opportunity has
paid off very nicely. So I just plain think it is wrong to say that
suddenly he has changed what he has said. He used the past tense
today to say he did a good job, rather than "is doing" because now
that's true.
On the question of coordination, we have said many times
what happened, which is that President Carter said that he had an
invitation to go to North Korea. He got in touch first with Vice
President Gore and with the President to ask whether we agreed to his
going, emphasizing that he was going as a private citizen, as he said
in a press release that he put out at the time, representing the
Carter Center. We discussed it within the administration. This was
while we were in Europe, as I recall -- or was it -- in Oxford -- and
got back to President Carter and said, yes, we agreed to his going --
although he didn't need our permission, he was acting as a private
citizen -- and agreed that he should be very fully briefed on our
policies so that he could accurately convey them to the North
Koreans.
Ambassador Gallucci met with him at great length. I met
with him while he was here in Washington before he went out. And the
rest is recent history.
Q What about the question of what your position will
be in talks regarding a full accounting of when North Korea might
have done in the past?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, as I said, the
issue of what happened in the past will be very high on the agenda in
those talks. It has always -- this is not a shift in our position.
For the last year and more, it has always been contemplated that the
issue of their past nuclear activities would be high on the agenda in
a third round of talks. My colleague -- correct me if I'm wrong, but
I don't remember any variation on that at any stage in the past, and
that remains our position. And now, apparently, we will be getting
into an opportunity to do so.
Let me simply note here that when they say that they
will, in the context of an overall resolution, fully implement the
NPT and IAEA safeguards that, in our view, that includes then the
kinds of inspections that would allow us to get a handle on what
happened in the past.
Let me also emphasize one other point that I think is
very important. This is not simply a negotiation between the United
States and North Korea. The United States, in these negotiations, is
acting on behalf of the international community as a whole.
Secondly, when we think about this, talk about this, write about
this, we ought to be always recalling the other important track here,
which is the North-South dialogue in which there has been significant
progress in the last few days; and which is aimed, among other
things, at reaffirming the North-South denuclearization agreement.
Q The U.S. has always taken the position that there
were three major issues that had to be discussed with North Korea in
addition to the nuclear one; those being human rights, support for
international terrorism and missile exports. Do you envision that
those issues will be part of the agenda for this third round of
talks, or is that something that would be put off for some future
round after the nuclear questions were resolved?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The President said that
we'll be discussing with them all of our relationships -- political,
security and economics. I'm not going to rule out any issues for
those talks. But the focus here, the main focus, from our point of
view, will be on the nuclear issue. But there are a lot of other
issues as well. For example, when you're talking about security
issues, there are also questions of conventional armorments, how you
can build more confidence between the two sides and deal with those
issues as well.
Q Just to clarify -- did you say that they have
agreed to fully implement the IAEA and NPT safeguards, or that's an
issue they will be discussing?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: In the context of an
overall agreement. In other words, that is something to be
negotiated.
Q Let's say the agreement in the context of an
overall resolution. Does that include if they allow the IAEA
inspectors to discover with special inspections what happened in
1989, are we willing to negotiate a situation to allow them to have
one weapon? Are we satisfied with that?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Our purpose here is a
denuclearized Korean Peninsula.
Q Is that a bottom line?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: That is our purpose
here, certainly.
Q Given their unpredictability and their irrational
behavior, even in recent times, what makes you think that they can be
trusted at this point to abide by anything they agree to?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: What we can do is to
take this step by step, very carefully, as we are. We now have their
explicit commitment with regard to the basis for the talks. And the
point of our having said throughout this that the IAEA inspectors
should be there was to, as the President said, verify that they are
abiding by their agreement on the basis for these talks. So this is
verifiable throughout; and that is the way we will continue to
negotiate.
Q What precisely is the language -- the duration of
the freeze? Is it through the third round, or is it indefinite?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: During the talks.
Q What are the talks that you refer to?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The third round of
talks.
Q So freeze is only through, at this point, through
the talks in early July and the fuel rods themselves, which are now
too radioactive to process, will be available to be reprocessed --
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: We are now in a
discussion with them at the working level about when those talks
begin. Those talks -- there is no set duration for those talks. We
would expect to continue in those talks so long as they are
productive, but there is no end date to them.
Q So the freeze, as you understand it from them, is
an open-ended freeze, but ongoing diplomatic dialogue that is
essentially beginning now, but certainly formally beginning in --
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No, no, it is not
beginning now. It will begin, and during the duration of those third
round talks, they have committed to freeze the major elements of
their nuclear program.
Q Beyond that, you're not talking about two days in
Geneva, you're talking about an ongoing process.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No, no, this is an
ongoing process, yes, absolutely.
Q What insight does this development give you into
North Korea's behavior given their high voltage rhetoric and bluster
in the days leading up to Carter's visit, and now it seems they're
being very conciliatory? What do we make of this?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: What we make of it is
something that I think I have been saying for a long time now, which is
that it would be a mistake on this issue or on most issues to allow
ourselves to become wildly optimistic or wildly pessimistic at any
stage, based on our assumptions about what is motivating them. What
matters here is what they say and what they do. And what matters is
that we be very steady and persistent in testing the possibilities in a
very realistic way as we go along. And I think that approach has
paid off in this step, and it is the approach we intend to follow in
the coming weeks. And that is why I have never found it useful, and
will not find it useful to speculate on exactly what is motivating them
at any particular point. What matters is what we can accomplish.
Q You gave us basically three reasons or explanations
for why this came about at this point --
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Three facts.
Q Well, three facts. U.S. pursuing a steady course,
the sanctions push, and then the Carter visit. Mr. Carter, just a
few minutes ago, said that he basically thought that those first two
and the second one definitely were the wrong course and that the U.S.
and Korea were actually headed for a nuclear annihilation basically.
How do you answer that? Because it seems that you are putting his
visit in the context of what -- number three, one of three. It seems
that in his context, it would be number one.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I put them in
chronological order, and I will not try to weight them among the
importance of the three. I don't think it's really useful to argue
about that. The fact is that all three of those things happened. We
cannot know exactly what motivated the North Koreans, and I don't see
the point in speculating about it or arguing about it. We should
simply welcome where we are now and pursue the opportunity that is
before us.
Q You're giving a lot of credit, obviously, to the
international policy of the Carter administration, which you were
basically saying worked. And what Mr. Carter is saying is it wasn't
working, and only by his jumping in at the last minute did --
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I cannot -- one, I
don't want to -- I don't think it is useful to get into an argument
about why. And I very carefully simply stated what the facts are,
and people can draw their own conclusions from those facts. I'm not
trying to claim particular credit or to run away from any particular
credit. Those are the facts and here's where we are, period.
Q If your basic objective is met in the third round,
mainly a verifiably demilitarized Peninsula, would that, in turn,
mean for the North Koreans diplomatic recognition, economic ties --
the basic things that they want?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: As I said, there are a
lot of issues on each side, but certainly, as we have said before, we
are prepared to discuss our political relationships with them,
including the issue of normalization; to discuss economic
relationships -- and again, this is not just us, but with the
international community generally. These are, as we say, broad and
thorough discussions, and we're prepared to discuss all of those
issues.
Q Do you see a quid pro quo? I mean, you're
emphasizing what you want, naturally. But at the end of the game, if
you get what you want, would they get what they want?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: That's in the nature of
agreements. There are a lot of issues on each side. As I said,
there's a lot of negotiating ahead of us now, and this is, as the
President was trying to emphasize, not the end of a problem but an
opportunity to resolve it. What exactly all the tradeoffs here is to
further negotiations, and I don't propose to do that in this room.
Q You were on the verge before President Carter's
visit of pressing sanctions through the Security Council; and had he
not come forward and come up with this idea, presumably that's where
you would be. In light of that, do you think the administration
should have made more efforts to open some form of dialogue with the
North Koreans that could have achieved this breakthrough and perhaps
achieved it earlier? And the President had a brief reference to
efforts that have been made on that behalf. Can you elaborate on
those?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I missed the last part.
First of all, when we have just had a positive step forward, I find
it strange to speculate on how we messed it up. So I'll try to get
my mind around that. In any case, the --
Q I wasn't suggesting you messed it up, but just
asking whether in retrospect basically you should have come up with
this idea as opposed to President Carter coming up with it.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I think that -- I'm
trying to remember Kennedy's phrase, if failure is an orphan and
success has a thousand -- and there's plenty of room for credit here,
as I said. Again, just look at the timing of events here. I have no
idea whether before those consultations at the Security Council if
there had been a similar approach it would have worked or not.
The fact is that we were consulting at the Security
Council. President Carter went, did a good job of conveying our
policy, while stating his own views. And the result has been that we
have agreed on the basis for the third round. And I see no point in
speculating whether if the timing had been different it would have
worked, because it worked with this timing.
Q What about the reference the President made to
other contacts, or other efforts to contact the North Koreans?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, as you know --and
this is not news -- a few months ago, Billy Graham was in Yongbyon
and described to Kim Il Sung, after we had talked to him, what our
policies were. There is a problem in conveying messages directly to
the top leadership of North Korea it has been our experience, or the
experience of others. And therefore, it was very useful that
President Carter did go and conveyed his description of our policies
directly to Kim Il Sung, evidently.
Q Can I ask you to clarify what you said a moment ago
about the issue of normalization? You said, we're prepared to
discuss our political relationship, including the issue of
normalization. Does that mean that resolution of the nuclear issue
would be sufficient basis for normalization, or just that it's a
necessary --
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: As I said, there are a
lot of issues here, and I'm not going to say what fits -- what the
quid pro quos are.
Q But in the past, the U.S. has laid out a number of
preconditions for normalization.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I would prefer to
negotiate with the North Koreans directly.
Q Yongbyon reactor has been the focus of the
inspection efforts, but there have been other suspected nuclear sites
in North Korea. What's being done to assure that this freeze will
not just be where the inspectors are?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, as I said, that's
what the special inspections are about.
Q They're going to allow special inspections, as well
--
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: They haven't said that.
That is high on the agenda of items to be negotiated now.
Q But we'll be talking about that. There is no
assurance now that there won't be any continuing activity at
suspected other sites in the meantime?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Those sites are places
where plutonium may have been stored previously. So that is part of
an effort to discover what had happened in the past.
END6:35 P.M. EDT
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