Arrival at Incheon Airport, Korea

QUESTION: You said in Washington, before coming here, that there is a reason to believe that there will be some progress this time. Can we expect something in writing? An agreement of some sort in writing this time?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, I mean, we’ll have to see what the Chinese think they can put together, but obviously our hope is to begin to implement the September agreement – the September ’05 agreement. We had hoped to do that in December, and I think we do have some reason to believe that we can make some progress on that. But I’ll know better a week from now.

QUESTION: The BDA talks – did the United States see any progress from that?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, from all accounts, it was a very useful couple-of-day discussion, and it continued on progress that was begun in December. We have always maintained that we are interested in resolving this, but we’ve also maintained that it’s been necessary to have the cooperation of the DPRK government. I think those discussions were very useful, from the point of view of our Treasury Department people.

QUESTION: So, your expectations of progress at the next round of Six-Party Talks have not slowed down or have not been reduced–

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Since when I got on the airplane or -- ?

QUESTION: Since the BDA talks in Beijing.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: No. We have reason to believe – We’ve done a lot of consultations for this round; we have reason to believe that we can make some progress. But, you know, the negotiation takes place with the six parties, and so, we haven’t had a negotiation since December. We’ve had a lot of conversations, so let’s see if some of those useful -- substantive conversations that we’ve had can be put to use in the negotiations.

QUESTION: How would you define progress this time?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I would define it as beginning the implementation of the September ’05 agreement -- that is, to begin to see in a reasonable amount of time, a set amount of time, some changes actually take place on the ground.

QUESTION: Does a freeze qualify as progress?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, again, I’m not going to get into specific elements of what we’re talking about, but I think we need to see some real changes on the ground.

QUESTION: So, have you found any clue to resolving the BDA issue?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, I think the Treasury team, under Daniel Glaser, again had very substantive and useful discussions. So, I think those have continued on discussions in December. I hope the DPRK sees the value of those discussions, because I think a lot of what the DPRK needs to do is to begin to work on getting a better reputation in banking circles and to get out of some practices that I think have been very harmful to that reputation.

QUESTION: Did the Treasury discussions give you anything to put on the table next week?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I think the Treasury – again, I don’t deal directly with the Treasury discussions. I talked to Dan Glaser before I left. I think obviously there is a relationship between the two sets of discussions, but they’re not directly related.

Okay, see you all later.

QUESTION: Just one last question, sir. You said that you will not go into specifics, but what would be the least kind of measures that you would expect from North Korea to call the next round successful?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, I think we have to go from having various declarations, to having agreements on implementation. So, I’m looking for some implementation of the September ’05 agreement, meaning something changes on the ground. But I don’t want to get into what that something is. Okay?

QUESTION: Do you have time blocked off for the Super bowl on Monday?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: No. Is there a Super bowl game this year?

QUESTION: Apparently so, yeah, but it must have dropped off your radar screen.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I lost interest. Okay, see you later.

[At the exit gate outside the secure area of the airport.]

QUESTION: Is there enough political momentum and political backing for the U.S. and the ROK to push your ideas through at the talks, even if the talks at this time fall short of your expectations? And do you see any political obstacles to go forth?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I’m not sure I understood that entire question, but let me just say we worked out some ideas together with the Japanese and the ROK delegations as early as when we were in Hanoi together. We’ve discussed it with the Chinese. We’ve discussed it with the Russians, and we’ve also had a number of discussions with the DPRK. So, based on these recent discussions that we’ve had with the DPRK – in fact the ROK negotiator discussed things with the DPRK negotiator – we believe we have a basis for going forward to another Six-Party round. And as for whether we make progress, we’ll know better next week.

Certainly we think we’ve had some useful discussions with the DPRK. The discussions center on the issue of implementing the September ’05 agreement, and we have some ideas for beginning the process of implementation. It doesn’t mean we will have the entire September ’05 agreement implemented this round. Obviously it’s going to take a few rounds. But what we’d like to do is make a very serious start on implementing it during this round.

QUESTION: Do you think the next Six-Party Talks can make some documents that include some date of each side have to make start some behavior?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, again, I won’t get into the specifics of how the Chinese want to do this, but I think that it’s always important in these Six-Party meetings that we get things down in writing. And things are the various undertakings that the various sides have to fulfill [that] are actually set out clearly.

So, I would expect the Chinese hosts to put something together, and I would also hope that it would be something that all six sides could agree with.

QUESTION: Sir, have the Treasury Department and the State Department reached a mutual and a tacit understanding of the BDA problem?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, we don’t have two governments; we have one government.

QUESTION: Right, but is there a mutual–

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: And we have a clear U.S. government policy, and it’s a policy set by our President and followed by the Secretary of State and Secretary of Treasury. So, we don’t have any problem within Washington. Our issue is to get to the Six-Party Talks and see if we can make progress on all of these issues.

QUESTION: So, you mean you can discuss about the BDA issue at the Six-Party Talks?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I think I just said the U.S. has a single policy that the President sets and that all Cabinet members follow, and I will be here to implement that policy. Our policy is to seek a negotiation that will result in the implementation of our September ’05 agreement.

QUESTION: Mr. Kim Jong-nam, the son of Mr. Kim Jong-il, was filmed at Macau, you know?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: (laughter) Yeah, I know. I read the newspapers.

QUESTION: And Japanese TV.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Japanese TV is everywhere, just everywhere.

QUESTION: So, do you think Mr. Kim Jong-nam was some relationship with BDA problems?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I don’t know. I don’t know. I have no reason to know anything about that, except what I read in Japanese media.

Okay? So, we’ll see you all later.

[Walking to car at airport.]

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Do you plan on making some positions on BDA issue?

QUESTION: No. What we’re trying to do is get the September ’05 agreement implemented. That’s all we’re going to do.