TRANSCRIPT: KRISTOFF, LORD BRIEFING DEC. 30 ON DPRK STATEMENT
SPECIAL BRIEFING BY SANDRA KRISTOFF, SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT, SENIOR DIRECTOR FOR ASIAN AFFAIRS AT THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL, AND WINSTON LORD, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EAST ASIAN AND PACIFIC AFFAIRS, ON RESOLUTION OF SUBMARINE INCIDENT ON KOREAN PENINSULA
MR. JOHN DINGER: Welcome to the State Department. We're pleased to have with us this afternoon Sandra Kristoff, special assistant to the president and senior director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council, and Winston Lord, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. They will offer you some on-the-record remarks regarding the resolution of the Korean submarine incident.
Following the statements by Ms. Kristoff and Mr. Lord, two senior administration officials will brief you on background on the same subject.
MS. KRISTOFF: Thank you. I think that there are three points of significance relating to the recent announcement by the North of regret for the submarine incident and South Korea's return of the remains that I'd like to briefly touch upon.
First, what did the sub incident mean for U.S.-South Korea relations? I think you know that since the beginning of this administration, the president has always maintained that we would stand firmly by our allies in efforts to reduce tension and prevent conflict. We have, in fact, on the peninsula stood firmly by South Korea every step of the way in addressing the challenges that we face on that peninsula.
I think that from the administration's perspective, it is through this leadership of the president's and the close consultation between Washington and Seoul that that leadership engenders that we have been able to make developments on Korean issues over the last three or four years.
This was certainly the case in the Agreed Framework, where, through working closely with Seoul, we were able to put a freeze on North Korea's dangerous nuclear program and eventually, we hope, move toward dismantlement of that. That agreement -- the Agreed Framework, the nuclear arrangement -- in turn, I think, made it possible for the president and President Kim to develop the idea of the four-party peace proposal which they offered in April of last year at Cheju, and which has as its goal the creation of a permanent peace mechanism to replace the somewhat outdated armistice, a mechanism that could address fully and comprehensively all of the political, economic and military issues that we face on that peninsula.
Since April, the president and the administration have been working very closely with Seoul, and indeed I think with the North, to try to put together momentum for the peace party process to bring us to the point where we could have the first meeting among us to work out agenda and issues and prospects for advancing stability and security.
All of the progress that we have been making through probably the summer, I think, really can be described as going on hold at the time of the submarine incident in mid-September. Certainly, there was at that point great outrage in Seoul, understandably, and frankly, I think we were quite sympathetic to that. Winston and I had the opportunity to travel to Seoul early in the fall, and he can speak more to the discussions that we had at that time. But that was clearly the issue that had emotionalized -- if I could make that a verb -- South Korea.
At that point in time, many people, I think, questioned the depth of the U.S.-South Korean alliance, and I think that where we are now demonstrates that that alliance was never in fact in question. We continued from September onward to work regularly, talk regularly, coordinate closely, on next steps with South Korea -- how we could get this submarine incident beyond us; that from the point of the initial manhunt all the way through the statement of regret and the return of remains.
In fact, in retrospect, the president's meeting with Kim in Manila was in many ways a kind of a turning point in our handling of this issue, in our thinking about this issue, because it was that meeting that reconfirmed and reiterated that the U.S.-South Korean alliance was the best deterrent to provocative North Korean actions. It was a reaffirmation of the U.S.-South Korean commitment that the Agreed Framework and the four-party talks would be treated separately and apart from the submarine incident, and would not be put in jeopardy because of inflammatory conditions on the peninsula.
Finally, it was the U.S.-South Korean agreement that it was North Korea that needed to take appropriate steps to remove this cloud of the submarine incident from our heads that I think finally convinced, if you will, the North or led to the North's understanding that the U.S. and South Korea -- the president and President Kim -- were not about to have a wedge driven between these two countries or these two men as a result of the North's actions.
So the North finally coming to understand this and the South's willingness, I think, over the last several weeks to deal with this issue in a way that it was not unduly politicized or emotionally charged, as well as our ability -- the U.S. ability -- to convey with credibility our insistence that this issue has to be put behind us before we can resume progress on the other issues that we had been working on diligently through the summer, brought us to the point of Sunday and Monday's announcements in Pyongyang and Seoul. I think the conclusion that we draw is that the president has showed that he is prepared to stay the course with South Korea and that that demonstration of determination is finally what created the conditions necessary to allow the North and the South to handle the sub problem.
Second -- quickly -- point of significance is really what did this sub incident mean for the peninsula itself, and I think very simply it exposed that the alternatives to dialogue are not very attractive; that increased tensions, high levels of rhetoric can lead to missteps and miscalculations in that our best chance for advancing Korean peninsula issues is through North-South dialogue and continued interaction with the North.
Finally, a number of people have asked what kinds of developments now are you expecting now that the submarine incident is behind us. I don't think that we believe that it's a very good idea to produce a road map, because we don't have a road map on what's going to happen next. But I think that we can look at all of those issues that were on our agenda, particularly since last April, and say that we now believe that the potential exists for moving forward on issues like the Agreed Framework, KEDO, and the light-water reactors, the joint briefing, economic issues between the U.S. and the North, humanitarian assistance concerns that the North has raised in the international community. The negative atmosphere that has hung over us now for nearly two months has been cleared away, and so there is a real possibility now for moving forward on the ideas that we have, that the South has, and, indeed, the North has for moving the four-party process forward. I think that we feel that we can look toward the future with a bit of confidence, and that we believe that the president's policies towards both South Korea and North Korea are in fact back on track.
Winston?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY LORD: Let me briefly reinforce some of the themes that Sanra Kristoff has set forth, and add a few other elements, particularly with respect to recent weeks.
As she has suggested, you have sort of two main elements in the Korean situation: the nuclear aspect, which we have taken care of through the Agreed Framework since 1994, which has frozen that dangerous program and will, over a period of time, dismantle it; and then the search for a more fundamental solutions -- the search for peace on the peninsula, which must involve more directly North-South talks and the importance of North-South dialogue. This has been addressed by the four-party peace proposal that Presidents Kim and Clinton put forward last April.
We were making progress on these fronts through the summer, into the fall, when the submarine incident intruded and momentum was stalled, and a tense situation existed on the peninsula. The South Koreans insisted, and we agreed, that the submarine incident had to be resolved first -- it was a provocation; there was loss of life -- before we could move ahead on various diplomatic fronts. The Agreed Framework was going to be maintained, but the fact is that the overall situation was tense and momentum was stalled.
As Sandy has also indicated, in November a very important agreement was reconfirmed between the two presidents, Kim and Clinton, of maintaining the Agreed Framework and the four-party process, but the urgent need for the North to take steps to resolve the submarine incident.
Since November, we have been working very diligently in close consultations with Seoul and in discussions with the North. Frankly, we would have preferred that the North talk directly to South Korea. It continued to resist to do so, and so, with the full concurrence and close consultations throughout with South Korea, we entered into very intensive discussions in New York. The Korean country director at the State Department, Mark Minton, led the negotiations on our side with participation from the NSC and other people from State. And the director-general for American affairs in the Foreign Ministry of North Korea, Li Hyong Chol, was on the North Korean side.
We relayed South Korean ideas and concerns in these talks, as well as putting forward our own ideas, which we closely vetted with the South Koreans. We entered into broad discussions in a sense that a lot of issues were out on the table -- the Agreed Framework, KEDO, four-party talks, North-South relations, U.S.-North Korean relations -- but the key principle throughout that we insisted on and stressed that the first step had to be a statement of regret, a statement of responsibility, by North Korea so we could get the submarine incident behind us to make it politically possible in South Korea, and indeed possible for us, to restore the momentum that had existed before September.
Let me pause and also point out at this point that about 10 days ago, we made another major step forward with respect to Korea; by working out between KEDO -- particularly Japan, South Korea and ourselves, and the European Union -- the EU's participation in KEDO, which is very important in political terms, in terms of European concerns for Asian stability, et cetera, but also financially, in terms of an immediate contribution of $13 million and an annual contribution of $20 million in the future. So that was another bit of very positive news of this past month.
To return to these past three weeks in the Minton-Li talks in New York, there were 11 such meetings. And throughout, we daily coordinated with our South Korean friends, as well as keeping other interested parties, other interested countries, posted on what was happening.
The results have been fully supported by the South Koreans. I'm not sure Sandy mentioned this, but the president of South Korea has expressed his appreciation in a letter to President Clinton for the close collaboration between our two countries. You've seen the result: namely, at 4:00 P.M. Sunday, Korean time, the North Korean statement, a very forthright statement indeed, and then the next day a meeting of the U.N. command with the North Koreans and the turning over of the North Korean military remains.
This is important in and of its own right in terms of easing the tense situation on the peninsula, but it now opens doors for which we hope there will be movement on various fronts made possible by getting this incident behind us. This includes the Agreed Framework in such areas as canning of spent fuel and signing of protocols. It includes what the North Koreans have already indicated in their own statement today, that they are prepared to come to a joint briefing. This is a goal we have worked for for nine months. It is very important because it means for the first time the North will sit down with the South, as well as ourselves and, we would hope at some point as well, of course, the Chinese, to talk about the future of the peninsula, a basic principle, indeed. It opens up further discussions, we hope, between North and South on a variety of issues, between us and the North on a full range of issues of great interest to the United States as well as to North Korea.
So I would conclude by saying we think we're ending the year on a very positive note, that we've seen bearing fruit in recent days efforts by the president and indeed the Secretary of State, who has been following these negotiations even though he's been in California, and others, to resolve this incident, to open the possibilities for movement on a wide variety of fronts. And on top of the agreement with the European Union to participate in KEDO, we think we are well poised as we enter the New Year to make further progress toward seeking peace and stability on the peninsula.
Thank you.
(end transcript)
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
