Remarks After Lunch With Park Geun-hye

QUESTION: Would you like to share the meeting and how it went?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: The meeting was, as always, very nice. We had a good discussion about a lot of things. I briefed Madam Park on the Six-Party process and where we are and where we hope to be. I will be going off to China tomorrow, and we’ll see how things look.

QUESTION: What is the main agenda when you talk with President Roh Moo-hyun?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I’m sorry.

QUESTION: When you talk to President Roh Moo-hyun?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, I went to the Blue House this morning, and I had a meeting with Deputy of National Security Advisor Yun Byung-se. During that time I had a brief courtesy call with the President. I talked to him a little bit about my perspective of the Six-Party process -- once again, where we hope to be and how we might get through this declaration issue in the second phase.

QUESTION: What did Roh say when you talked about your perspective? What was his response?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, he gave me some insights from his perspective. It was a brief meeting, but he gave me some insights from his perspective. We just talked about the need to finish this job and, even though it gets a little tiring at times, not to give up and to keep working at it and try to finish it -- because the job will not be finished until we really get complete denuclearization. That is very important to all the Korean people and the entire Korean Peninsula.

So I told them not to worry – that we will continue to work on this and work very closely with the ROK, with whatever government the ROK has. We will work very closely with it, and we will see if we can finish this.

QUESTION: What was the meeting with the Foreign Minister this morning?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE HILL: That was just a one-on-one breakfast I had, and again we reviewed a lot of foreign policy issues.

Okay, I think I have to get moving here. Good to see you all.

QUESTION: Any comments about the primaries in New Hampshire?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE HILL: No, I do not interfere in my own country’s internal affairs.

All right. See you later.