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.)
(###)
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