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QUESTION: Phil, do you have anything on the fact that it's coming out now that Kim Jong-il was only kidding when he said to Putin that -- made that offer to Putin? I know you're familiar with it. Barry and I on the plane have always said that Kim was a big kidder. 

QUESTION: And polite.

QUESTION: And he's very polite. He's a well-brought-up young man. And I wonder if you have anything on that.

MR. REEKER: Well, I've seen a number of press reports. We were looking at those yesterday and this morning -- the press reports in question that suggest some of the things you're indicating. 

As we've said many times before from here, we strongly encourage any concrete action that North Korea may take to achieve progress in addressing the concerns that the international community has, both about the North Korean missile export activities and about its indigenous missile program.

We agreed during bilateral missile talks, which you'll recall were held in Kuala Lumpur in July, to hold another round of missile talks as soon as possible to discuss those issues further, and we are seeking to arrange an early date. The next round of missile talks will certainly provide an opportunity, I think, for North Korea to explain very clearly whether it's interested in exploring the sort of arrangements that Putin had described earlier. 

I think, as the Secretary said during her press conference after her meeting with North Korean Foreign Minister Paek, that she wasn't able to glean further details of the proposal from the foreign minister. So we'd be very interested in seeing North Korea eliminate its ballistic missile and space launch vehicle programs and exports, in return for the ability to launch satellites from other countries using launch services from existing launch providers under the strict technology safeguards.

But again, I don't have any clarification, and we'll continue to follow up on that when we have our next round of missile talks.

QUESTION: Could you comment on the report out of North Korea that Kim Jong-il is prepared to resume ties with the US tomorrow if the US removes North Korea from the terrorism list? 

MR. REEKER: We saw those reports. I think as everyone is aware, we've been talking about North Korea for some time now; in accordance with Dr. Perry's recommendations in the review he did of US policy toward North Korea, we are prepared to improve relations with Pyongyang as North Korea addresses the areas of concern that we have had. The Perry report and what we've called the Perry process focuses on our key nuclear and missile concerns, but also the state support of terrorism is another important area where we've had concerns about North Korea for a long time. 

Last week, as you'll recall, Ambassador Michael Sheehan visited Pyongyang and held productive talks with Vice Foreign Minister Kim. This was the second round of terrorism talks that have been held, the first round having been in March in New York. Ambassador Sheehan explained to the North Koreans the steps that North Korea needs to take to cease support for terrorism and thereby be removed from our list of state sponsors of terrorism. 

As you'll recall - and from our report on terrorism, which is issued annually - under US law, a country may be removed from the list only after the President certifies to Congress that that country's government has not been supporting terrorism and has given assurances that it will not support terrorism in the future.

So to that end, we expect to hold further bilateral talks on the subject of terrorism with North Korea, and we hope they will be prepared to take the necessary steps to allow us to then remove them from the list.

QUESTION: Can you just expand on that a little bit? Expect to. Did Sheehan depart with an agreement to hold another -- 

MR. REEKER: We do expect to have another round of talks, but I don't have a specific date for you.

QUESTION: Can you say whether there was any progress made at all in those talks?

MR. REEKER: They were reported to me as being good talks, where Ambassador Sheehan was able to explain again the steps that we see that North Korea needs to take to be considered for removal from the list. He described them as productive talks, but indicated that we would continue those talks in another round -- date to be determined, obviously. 

I'm not in a position to sort of get into a defining step by step, or discussing the details of that. We have indicated in the past, and it's in our terrorism report, that one of the steps, for instance, would be ceasing the safe haven that's been provided for Japanese Red Army faction hijackers from the 1970s. That's an example of a step that the North Koreans would need to take, and that's listed in our annual report on terrorism.

Anything more on this? 

(The briefing was concluded at 2:25 P.M.) 

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