Comments to Reporters Upon Return to Okura Hotel After Dinner

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, first of all, Mr. Sasae is just – There’s no person in the Six-Party process closer to me than Mr. Sasae. We work very, very closely together. In fact, just a couple weeks ago he was in Washington, and we discussed the issue of whether I should meet with our DPRK counterpart. And so, as a result of that meeting, I went ahead and met with Mr. Kim Kye Gwan. Then I came back here to Tokyo to discuss that with Mr. Sasae. So we’re hopeful that we can get the Six-Party process going. As you know, both Mr. Sasae and I were not entirely satisfied with the December session, though we feel there’s some way forward, perhaps, in this January time period. So, we’ll see.

QUESTION: Did you receive any requirements from Japan today?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, you know, Japan and the U.S. are close allies. We have a lot in common, and I’m sure that we’ll be able to work very closely together in the weeks ahead.

QUESTION: Have found any specific reason to be so optimistic about the upcoming Six-Party Talks?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I think one should be very careful about being optimistic; I prefer to be realistic rather than optimistic or pessimistic. Look, we have a lot of work to do. We’re trying to do a very difficult thing, which is to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. And we have some reason to go forward, we have some reason to believe that the next session might be helpful. But we have to see.

QUESTION: You don’t rule out the possibility of the February 6th?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I don’t know what time it’s going to be. I’m going to talk to the Chinese about that, and the Chinese will have to talk to me, they’ll have to talk to Sasae-san, they’ll have to talk to Chun Yung-woo from South Korea, Kim Kye Gwan from North Korea, talk to the new Russian representative. So, we’ll see; we’ll see how it goes.

QUESTION: So tomorrow in China, what are you going to – especially –

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, we are going to talk about my views on the need to get the Six-Party Talks going. But we have to see what the Chinese have to say. I haven’t talked with the Chinese in a couple of weeks now, so I want to brief them on what we did in Berlin and see how they assess the situation.

Thank you very much.