Interview With CNN International

CNN: U.S. chief negotiator Christopher Hill is at our Beijing bureau and joins us live via broadband. Welcome to the program. This has been called a breakthrough, but the deal is already attracting a lot of criticism. John Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., said on CNN that this is a bad deal. He also said that it sends the wrong message, and he is urging President Bush to reject it. Is this going to be a tough sell back in Washington?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well first of all, Mr. Bolton is a private citizen and certainly entitled to his own opinion. I would say the other opinions are [inaudible]. But I think whenever you try to do something, you have to expect that not everyone is going to be happy with it.

What we were able to do is take a Six-Party process, a process in which China is in the lead, is in the chair, and move to implement an agreement. The agreement we reached way back in September ’05 -- and to be sure it’s been tough to get that agreement off the paper and onto the ground. So this is the first time that we’ve been able to get some traction and get it implemented.

These are just initial steps. If we stop with just these initial steps, I think we could really be listening to some criticism. But it's simply the initial steps that [inaudible], and we are ready to move to additional steps, to additional phases. I think it could be the start of something really positive.

CNN: Now the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, said that Japan will not provide energy aid to North Korea under the agreement unless the abduction issue is resolved. Japan apparently is not playing ball here. Could that somehow unravel the momentum that’s been achieved with this initial agreement?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Actually, we’ve been in very close contact with the Japanese; they had a very good delegation at the talks, a very active delegation. And it’s their position, and it’s a delicate issue. It’s very, very well known. It’s certainly known for the North Koreans. I think it’s very important, though, that in the agreement that we reached just a few hours ago, the North Koreans have agreed to begin a bilateral process with Japan. And this would start within thirty days. Our hope is that they can begin to address some of these very difficult issues. Certainly when you look at the energy assistance, the other countries -- China, Russia, the U.S. and the Republic of Korea -- all actively participate in that. And the Japanese, certainly they will be too, once some of their concerns are addressed.

CNN: Back to the details of this deal. Now according to this deal, North Korea has agreed to freeze plutonium production. It will shut down its Yongbyon nuclear plant. But what about its uranium program? Is that also covered in this agreement?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: The agreement also calls for North Korea to discuss with us lists of their nuclear programs that would be slated for abandonment according to the September 2005 agreement. So to be sure, if there’s an HEU program, as we believe there is, that would have to be included in that declaration. I have talked about this HEU program at considerable length with the DPRK delegation, the North Korean delegation. At this point they are not prepared to acknowledge they have it. But they are prepared to sit down and discuss it, discuss our concerns systematically in a working group and see if those concerns can be addressed. So we’ll have to see. But certainly from our point of view we need to run this issue to the ground.

CNN: The second phase, what’s going to happen next is basically the start of the process. But for that to be discussed, you have to know exactly how many nuclear weapons North Korea has. According to U.S. intelligence, what is the answer to that question?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Certainly what we are going to accomplish when we discuss this list is to determine how much fissile material they have already harvested from this reactor. We believe it’s something in the neighborhood of fifty kilos, and this will be determined more scientifically at a later date. But we felt it was important to shut down the reactor. It’s now a fifty kilo problem; we don’t want it to become a hundred kilo problem. Moreover, I think one has to remember plutonium is pretty hardy stuff. Once it’s produced it stays on this earth for seven hundred thousand years. So we thought as a first step, as an initial action, it would be valuable to shut down this reactor.

CNN: So still, so many questions about the amount of fissile material North Korea has, the number of nuclear weapons that North Korea has, but even if that number – that amount -- was known and you did get to the point of brokering some sort of disarmament with the North Koreans, are the North Koreans even willing to give up their nuclear weapons? This has long been seen as their last big bargaining chip.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: First of all, they have reaffirmed their commitment to the September ’05 agreement, which calls for the complete denuclearization. They have reaffirmed that they are committed to getting rid of these weapons. But of course that has to be tested, and that has to be tested in a series of implementing agreements, of which this one is the first. I have no doubt that -- You mentioned this as card to play. I have no doubt that in fact nuclear weapons in North Korea have been a terrible albatross. They have caused tremendous damage to the economy, in the sense of North Korea’s isolation. They have really made it very difficult for North Korea to develop, and they really deprive North Korea of any natural allies out there.

One of the key aspects to what we’re doing in the doing in the Six-Party process -- and this something that Secretary Rice has worked very hard on personally -- is to develop this relationship with China, such that we have worked as never before with China. So I think the North Koreans find themselves very isolated, and the way to overcome that isolation is to get out of this nuclear business.

CNN: All right, Christopher Hill, we really need to get back, but thank you very much for joining us in the program. Christopher Hill, the chief American negotiator joining us live in Beijing.