Tracking Number: 340439
Title: "Perry: US Will Not Show Lack of Commitment to S Korea."
Remarks of Defense Secretary William Perry during a press conference in South Korea on continued US solidarity with South Korea and the US commitment to continued readiness to stand with South Korea. (940422)
Date: 19940422
Text:
*EPF504
04/22/94
PERRY: U.S. WILL NOT SHOW LACK OF COMMITMENT TO SKOREA (Transcript: Seoul press conference 04/21/94) (2850) Seoul -- "While we will not provoke a war, the United States also will not invite a war," Secretary of Defense Perry told reporters in Seoul April 21.
"That is," Perry added, "we will not invite a war by showing a lack of commitment to the Republic of Korea, by showing a lack of solidarity with the Republic of Korea, or by showing a lack of readiness."
Perry said his visit to the Republic of Korea comes at "a time of high political tension, but I want to emphasize that there is not high military tension."
Following is official transcript of the press conference:
(begin official transcript)
MS. KATHLEEN DELASKI: Okay. He will make an opening statement for you and then he will take some of your questions before we go off to visit some troops. So with that, I give you Dr. Perry.
MR. PERRY: Good morning. My visit to the Republic of Korea in at a time of high political tension, but I want to emphasize that there is not high military tension.
That is, there in no imminent danger of a military confrontation on the Korean Peninsula. This is my judgment and it's also the judgment of your Minister of National Defense Rhee.
What talk you hear of occasionally in the media of war is, I think, entirely inappropriate.
Certainly it is true that the United States will not initiate a war. The United States will not provoke a war by any rash actions on the peninsula.
Indeed, all of our efforts have been directed to diffuse the political tension through patient diplomatic actions.
And that while we will not provoke a war, the United States also will not invite a war.
That is, we will not invite a war by showing a lack of commitment to the Republic of Korea, by showing a lack of solidarity with the Republic of Korea, or by showing a lack of readiness.
To put that same point in a more positive way, I am here to affirm, to reaffirm, the commitment of the United States to the security of the Republic of Korea, to assure the solidarity between the United States and the Republic of Korea, and to assure the readiness of our combined forces.
I had several very specific objectives for making this trip this week. First of all, I wanted to establish a friendship and mutual understanding between your Minister of National Defense Rhee and myself.
We both came into office just a few months ago, and because of the significance of this defense alliance and the crisis on the peninsula caused by the North Korean pursuit of a nuclear weapon, we felt that it was important that we talk at this time and we meet face to face.
I also wanted to obtain a firsthand appraisal of our defense planning and the readiness of our forces, and by "our" forces I mean the Republic of Korea and United States combined forces.
And, finally, through consultations with Minister Rhee and other senior Republic of Korea leaders, I wanted to exchange views with them on how the United States and the Republic of Korea jointly assessed the problems in security and ensure that we have a common strategy to deal with them.
Minister Rhee and I have made arrangements to establish classified telephones on our desks so that we can continue our communications on a frequent basis, and I've also invited Minister Rhee to come to Washington at an early date to continue our security dialogue.
I can report to you that after intensive discussions with Minister Rhee, Foreign Minister Han, National Security Advisor Chang, and President Kim Yong Sam, that I believe there is solid agreement among all of us on a joint strategy regarding the North Korean nuclear issue and on how to maintain a deterrent posture in force readiness while we attempt to resolve this nuclear issue through diplomacy.
I want to comment briefly on the Team Spirit agreement which was released yesterday.
Minister Rhee and I agreed that while we have resumed planning so that Team Spirit '94 can be held in November, we are still willing to suspend this defensive exercise in the context of implementation of arrangements for a third round of talks between the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. In short, we still hope that diplomacy will work.
Today I will go, accompanied by Minister Rhee and Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Lee, to visit some Republic of Korea and United States military units.
I am confident that this visit will verify the findings I've made to date of a strong and close defense alliance between our two countries.
I am going to open for questions now. I would like to alternate between questions from Korean reporters and American reporters who are here. Let me start off with a question from a Korean reporter.
Q: Last month, Secretary Perry, you met with the press people and said that in addition to the force augmentation of the U.S. forces in Korea, you will be transferring military equipment to the Republic of Korea forces to augment their vulnerabilities. And you also mentioned that you will discuss these matters with General Luck when you visit in April, Korea, and I understand that there has been some concrete discussions of the possible transfer of the U.S. modern technology equipment to Korea.
Can you elaborate on that? PERRY: We had discussions both with General Luck and with Minister Rhee about the progress of the modernization of the Republic of Korea forces here. There have been many important improvements made over the last -- initiated over the last 6 to 12 months by the Republic of Korea, improvements which we felt were very important to strengthening the readiness of the Korean forces on the peninsula.
We also discussed measures that involved assistance from the U.S. We discussed the, what I would call, pre-positioning of equipment.
As some of you, perhaps, know, we decided in our bottoms-up review last year, which was our basic planning document, that we should put a greater emphasis on having equipment pre-positioned in ships. And the equipment on those ships, which would be the heavy equipment that goes for armored brigades, for example, would be available to Korea in the event of any military crisis here.
Q: Dr. Perry, I'd like to ask you about another area of the world which you would probably agree that is another area of both political and military crisis, and that's Bosnia.
President Clinton said today that the U.S. -- the new U.S./UN plan would create a Sarajevo-like cocoon, perhaps, cluttered around six of the enclaves -- of the six enclaves in Bosnia. The Serbs have not shown any steps to be cooperative. Would you rule out as part of that plan any strategic strikes against Serbian targets, such as ammunition and fuel dumps and supply lines to stand behind the threat?
PERRY: The plan or the proposal made by President Clinton involves creating an exclusion zone around the safe haven areas, and in this exclusion zone any heavy weapons that are found will be subject to air attack by the NATO Air Force.
In the course of this attack, it is proposed, also, that related targets could also be attacked, including ammunition dumps or supply areas. So, it is broader in that extent -- to that extent than the Sarajevo model.
I should mention, parenthetically, that in preparation of this area of our plan, it was always envisioned that that would be a backup tactic, if necessary, in Sarajevo. We have never had to apply that air strike to Sarajevo so we have never had a chance to see whether it was necessary to extend it beyond the specific heavy weapon that was firing. But that was part of that Sarajevo concept to begin with.
In terms of -- So, yes, that is -- that is considered. It differs from the Sarajevo plan -- I think that's all I'll say about it right now. The important point to make at this stage is that the proposal has been sent to the allies who would be involved both in executing in the air and who would be affected on the ground, and that's under intensive discussion right now. The exact details of how the plan is to be worked out remain ahead of us yet.
Q: Mr. Secretary, as the problem solver for war and peace, I hope you make a lot of contributions during your tenure.
My first question is concerning your recent newspaper interview in which you said that in order to prevent a North Korean nuclear program you will take the risk of experiencing another war in the Korean Peninsula, if that is necessary, to prevent from North Korea -- North Korea from developing nuclear weapons.
Does that mean that North Korea now has the weapon -- nuclear weapon or does that translate that they still do not have any nuclear weapons?
Number two is concerning Patriot deployment. As you know, in Korea there are some Congressmen and some opposition leaders and some students' groups who are against deployment of the Patriot missile to Korea, and if the tension on the Korean Peninsula decreases, does that mean that you will be able to -- That was the third question. The second question was, was there any discussion about possible procurement by the Korean government of the Patriot system for improving the defense of the Korean forces?
And number three was, if the situation in Korea enhances, will the U.S. consider withdrawal of the Patriot systems?
And the number four question is, there are many misunderstandings amongst Korean people about your role as the Secretary of Defense, that is an arms seller. So, during this visit to Korea, has there been any discussion about the selling of the weapons system to the Republic of Korea?
PERRY: You've got an awful lot in one question. I'll see if I can deal briefly with each of those points.
First of all, we intend to pursue diplomacy, firmly and patiently, until or unless there is no hope for success of diplomacy anymore.
And if that happens, then we and the Republic of Korea, together, would go to the United Nations and propose that sanctions be imposed on North Korea.
Secondly, in terms of the Patriot, it is a purely defensive system. It is a system that has no offensive capability at all and it is a part of a regular modernization program. It has been planned, actually, for several years and there's no reason to withdraw it. It's not here because of the nuclear weapon program. It is designed to defend against conventional SCUD attacks on airfields and ports and other military installations.
Third, let me make a point very clear, my responsibility as Secretary of Defense is not to be a salesman for U.S. equipment.
My responsibility is to provide for the joint readiness of the combined forces here in Korea to defend this country.
Most specifically, I have, at no time in this meeting, including my meeting with Minister Rhee, I did not discuss the procurement of the Patriot by Korea.
Nor did I discuss the procurement of any other American system by the Republic of Korea.
Finally, on the question of the -- whether the North Koreans have zero or one or two bombs, let me see if I can clarify that some.
Because of the secret -- secretive nature of the North Korean government and society, it is difficult to make fully confident estimates on every aspect of the North Korean military forces.
I will tell you, first of all, what we know with full confidence, and that is that North Korea has a major nuclear weapon program underway.
We don't have the details of all of the components of this program, but we know it includes a 25 megawatt reactor, a 200 megawatt reactor under construction, a radio chemistry laboratory, and high explosive testing facility.
The only plausible explanation of these facilities is a major nuclear weapons program.
To have a complete nuclear weapons program there have to be other components as well, which we do not have detailed information about.
Within weeks it will be necessary for the North Koreans to remove the fuel, which is now in their 25 megawatt reactor.
This fuel would provide sufficient plutonium to make 4 or 5 nuclear bombs. We believe that it is critical that that operation be supervised closely by the Atomic Energy -- International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
At an earlier date, the North Koreans removed a smaller amount of fuel from this reactor.
We know that it was removed, but because they did it, not under supervision, in fact, they did it without observation at the time, we can only estimate how much fuel was removed.
We estimate that there was enough plutonium in that fuel to make 1 or 2 bombs.
We estimate that they probably have the capability to convert that plutonium into bombs.
And we estimate that they have had enough time by now to have succeeded in doing that.
Recently, Kim Woo Song made a statement which we welcome, that North Korea has no bombs, no nuclear bombs, no aspirations for nuclear bombs, and no secrets about their nuclear bomb program.
We call an him to allow the inspection of the International Atomic Energy Agency so they can verify that assertion so as it can remove the uncertainty in our present estimates.
Q: Okay, well then I'll have to ask you about Bosnia if it's the last question.
Often at the Pentagon we've been given the rationale for why the Sarajevo model might not apply to Gorazde, the small unit fighting, the difficulty of targets, the lack of ground troops to support the agreement. What has changed the thinking about that? And the second part is will you then have to make adjustments in numbers of ground troops, planes, or equipment to carry out this proposal, if it's agreed to by the allies?
PERRY: First of all, let me clarify a point which is that the role of the United States in Bosnia is not as a combatant power. We are there to assist the peace-keeping efforts going on by the United Nations.
There has been real momentum in those peace-keeping efforts during the last 2 months with the ultimatum on Sarajevo, with the agreements in the Criana (sic), and with the peace agreement between -- the tentative peace agreement between the Croats and the Muslims.
The Serbs shelling and assault on Gorazde has been a real setback to the momentum of these peace agreements.
President Clinton's proposal is an attempt to regain the momentum and to get back to the peace agreement, the cessation of hostilities and the peace agreements.
It is still not a decision for the United States to become a combatant in the war.
It's still limited to a U.S. and NATO role as assisting in peace-keeping. It's still limited to the use of air power. There is no decision in this proposal to use U.S. or NATO ground combatant forces.
And it is still not a proposal for unilateral action. Whatever we're doing in Bosnia, we have to take full account of the danger to the ground troops, UN ground troops there, and any proposal has to be clearly coordinated with the allies, both in the air and on the ground.
Now with that background, let me try to answer your question. With those limitations, it is clear that this proposal, even if accepted, will not guarantee the security of the safe haven areas.
But it will be very effective in reducing the shelling that goes on into these cities, and it will be very effective in raising the price to the Serbs of continuing the shelling.
The real hope, real expectation, is that this action will not be a decisive military action affecting the battles going on into safe areas, but it will provide the impetus to get back to the discussions, to get back to the cessation of hostilities agreement and finally to a peace agreement in Bosnia.
It is still a limited action dedicated to supporting peace-keeping, and if it is not successful, then we will have to consider other actions.
But we believe that when both combatants on the ground, the Muslims and the Serbs, consider the situation and consider the extent to which this dramatically increased use of air power can affect it, that both sides will be willing to agree to a cessation of hostilities.
Finally, we do not see the requirement for additional air power beyond what we already have in the Adriatic and Aviano to carry out this ultimatum. We do believe that additional United Nations peace-keeping forces will be needed to go into the safe haven areas.
(end official transcript)
NNNN
File Identification: 04/22/94, EPF504
Product Name: Wireless File
Product Code: WF
Keywords: PERRY, WILLIAM/Speaker; KOREA (SOUTH)-US RELATIONS/Policy; KOREA
(NORTH)-US RELATIONS; KOREA (NORTH)-KOREA (SOUTH) RELATIONS; DEFENSE POLICY; FORCE & TROOP LEVELS; OFFICIAL VISITS; RHEE BYOUNG-TAE; LUCK, GARY; KOREA (NORTH)/De
Document Type: TRA
Thematic Codes: 1EA; 2FP; 1DE
Target Areas: EA
PDQ Text Link: 340439
USIA Notes: *94042204.EPF
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
