U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING
Briefer: Richard Boucher, Spokesman
THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, 2000, 12:55 P.M.
(ON THE RECORD UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED)
QUESTION: Can we go back to North Korea and the Moscow trip?
MR. BOUCHER: Anywhere.
QUESTION: How much does this have to do - the trip to Moscow -
have to do with Putin's meeting with Kim Jong-il and his supposed
offer of scrapping the missile program in exchange for money and
space satellites?
MR. BOUCHER: That's part of it. They will discuss a whole range
of issues, certainly the international community's
nonproliferation goals and then they want to follow up on the
discussions between Kim Jong-il and President Putin on the
missile issues. We have talked with Russia on numerous occasions
about the Korean Peninsula, and like us, Russia has encouraged
the engagement on the peninsula.
We have also strongly encouraged concrete action by North Korea
to achieve progress in addressing all these concerns of the
international community, both on the missile export program and
on its indigenous missile programs. So those are going to be
subjects that we will discuss with the Russians as well.
QUESTION: Can I follow up? Do you think that, apparently during
the meeting, he made this offer to Putin to scrap the missile
program, and then later said to South Korean journalists that he
was just kidding. How serious do you think this offer is, and
how willing would the United States be to participate in a
program where they would fund this kind of thing and fund space
satellites for North Korea?
MR. BOUCHER: Well, we all want to know more about it. And since
the Russians have had the direct discussions with North Koreans
on this, we are going to want to talk to the Russians about it,
and see what they know, and how they evaluate it.
Certainly, it is in the interest of the international community,
and the international community has made quite clear they want to
see the North Korean missile programs curbed. The Russians share
that desire, and we will be talking to them about how to do it as
well as talking to our allies.
QUESTION: Richard, I mean, do you have any reason to believe
that there has been further communication between the North
Koreans and the Russians on this subject since President Putin
and President Clinton discussed it in Okinawa?
MR. BOUCHER: I can't remember the various reports. But there
certainly -
QUESTION: There hasn't been any information about it from any -
well, I mean, that's come out publicly since the original thing,
except for the idea that Kim says that he was joking. I mean, is
there some reason that you think that the Russians have more
information than they did before?
MR. BOUCHER: I think that is one of the questions we will be
asking them and talking to them about and see if they can go into
more detail on their understanding or whether they've gotten any
subsequent information.
QUESTION: This might be an historical question but what did the
North Koreans promise when we originally agreed to give them
crude oil and build a nuclear power plant way back when? I mean,
isn't this the same sort of thing?
MR. BOUCHER: I would be glad to give you thousands of pages of
documents on that subject.
QUESTION: But I mean, are they similar, is what I'm asking
about.
MR. BOUCHER: Well, we don't know exactly what this offer is that
they have made to Putin. We're still following up with the
Russians. The Russians have been following up, we think, with
the North Koreans to find out more about it.
(The briefing was concluded at 1:35 p.m.)
|
NEWSLETTER
|
|
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list
|
|
|
