Remarks Upon Return to Hotel After Dinner

QUESTION: Did it have anything to do with the disablement in North Korea?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: No it didn't.

QUESTION: Ambassador, at the airport today you mentioned that we need to have more of a sense of patience on waiting for the declaration. And on implementing the initial phase, we waited for about three months from the deadline to actually see the [inaudible] happen. This time, how tolerant are you? Are you expecting that they are just going to submit it in a matter of weeks or days or months?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: First of all, I think that we need to be in consultation with our Six-Party partners. And we need to really do what I've just started doing today, which is talking to our partners, seeing what our options are. I think in government, whenever you have these situations -- You know, obviously, we didn't want for this deadline to be missed. We wanted this to be done. But we were in a situation where they were not prepared to give us a complete and correct declaration. So they missed the deadline.

So then the issue, if you're dealing with a policy, is: you’ve got to ask yourself the question, “OK, what's my alternative? What should I do? What is in our interest to do?” Is it in our interest, for example, when a deadline is missed by a few days, is it in our interest to break off all the talks and to end the Six-Party process? Well, I think if you think about that, it's probably not in our interest. So I think whenever you're in these policy situations, you've got to think very calmly. And I really do believe it's very important to be calm and to think, “What is in our best interest?” And so we are doing some consultations on that.

Today I had some very good discussions with Director-General Sasae. And tomorrow I'll be talking to the South Koreans, and the next day with the Chinese, and the day after that I'll be talking to the Russians. So we'll see what our interests are. I think our interests are in trying to get a complete and correct declaration and to try to encourage the North Koreans to understand that that is in their best interest. And if they can go ahead with that, if they can give us that complete and correct declaration that includes all the programs -- and not leaving out programs or pretending that certain facilities don't exist when in fact we know that they do exist -- that they will see that that is in their interest. What I think is important for them to understand is that as they move forward, we will move forward. And I think that we can all make progress on it.

QUESTION: Do you have any sense of how many days or weeks that we need to have until the declaration?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: You know I'm not very good with predictions. I can tell you that the deadline has been missed, and we need to talk to our partners and see what the best way forward is. But I can't tell you with any precision how long it will go on. As you know, we've missed other deadlines and somehow we've been able to figure out what to do and to move ahead.

QUESTION: Have the North Koreans been positive on submitting that complete and full declaration?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: No, they have not been positive on submitting a complete and correct declaration. They've been positive on submitting an incomplete and incorrect declaration. And while I appreciate that positive spirit, I would more appreciate a complete and correct declaration. So that's the issue. You know, they were prepared to submit something that was much more than zero. I mean, they were ready to submit a declaration that did have a lot of the necessary elements in there. But complete means complete. And, you know, we can't go with something that's 80% or 90%. We really need to go with something that's complete. And what I have tried to do -- We've had a number of consultations with the North Koreans, as they indicated in their statement, and that was true; we have had these conversations. But we need something that really is complete -- because to the extent that they are able to be transparent, explain what they've been able to do, we're going to be able to go forward.

QUESTION: You pointed out at the Foreign Ministry that even about the nuclear programs or nuclear facilities, they omitted something. It sounds like there's a difference between the U.S. and the DPRK, a gap between the U.S. and the DPRK.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: There are some gaps in terms of our definition of complete and correct, yes. But I think our definition is also the same definition that the Japanese Government has, that the South Korean Government has, that the Chinese, the Russians have as well. So, yes, we do have some disagreements on what constitutes complete and correct.

QUESTION: How many percent are we waiting for?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, again, I think that it is too difficult to talk about percentage. But I think we know. We've had some good discussions about what in our view is missing. So we are going to keep working on this. And it's important not to panic, and it's important not to turn this into some crisis. We're dealing with a tough problem. It's a tough problem that has been around for many years. I think we made some progress in ’07. And here we are in the first week of ’08, and I don't think we should all go into some kind of panic about it.

QUESTION: But those missing parts are the core issues?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, some of the missing parts are things that we know what they are, which is all the more reason why they shouldn't be missing. So, again, from the North Korean perspective, they're saying, “Why do you need to have that? After all, you have your suspicions about it already. Why do you need for us to confirm that, when you already have your views on it?” But, in fact, we’re trying to go forward in a process that's going to lead to complete denuclearization and complete normalization. These are rather historical developments. And if we're going to achieve historical developments, we need to have some sense of transparency now. So the North Koreans shouldn't be worried that we are somehow going to use information to ask them a thousand or two thousand questions or somehow unravel their whole system. What they need to understand is, they need to be transparent.

QUESTION: Is HEU one of those elements?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, again, I don't want to get into the specific elements. But thank you for asking.

QUESTION: Do you have any plans to visit the DPRK?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: No, I don't have any plans this time. I don't rule it out for the future, but just not in the next three or four days. See you later.