Comments to Reporters Upon Leaving Okura Hotel for Embassy

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Nice to see you again.

QUESTION: Will you go out from now, have a dinner with Mr. Ken Sasae?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: No, I’m going, actually, over to the Embassy.

QUESTION: Oh, the Embassy. Won’t you have a dinner tonight with Mr. Ken Sasae?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I think we’re having dinner, but I’m not sure.

QUESTION: Do you have time to give us just a brief comment on North Korea?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: OK; I think I just gave you a brief comment, but OK.

QUESTION: Thank you, sir. I heard a report saying the DPRK proposed (to) you that they want either a light water reactor or the fuel. Are you….

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I didn’t talk to them about this…(inaudible). We talked generally about the need to get on with the denuclearization, and I’m sure these issues – they’ve come up before, and I’m sure they’ll come up again. And I think that, as we’ve said to them before, their desire for civil nuclear energy at best [is] premature -- because they are right now in a position where no country can talk to them about civil nuclear energy. So I’m sure these issues – they’ve come up before; they’ll come up again, and I’m sure we’ll discuss them again when we go back to Beijing.

OK, I’m kind of late; I have to get moving here.

QUESTION: Is Mr. Joel Wit still in Japan?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I have no idea.

QUESTION: Are you going to meet him? If so….

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: No; I have no idea. I read about him in the newspaper.

That’s all. OK?

QUESTION: Thank you, sir.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: OK