Joint Press Availability With Director-General Akitaka Saiki

[Note: Director-General Saiki spoke in Japanese, and his remarks are not included.]

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Thank you very much. It was a great pleasure to come here and meet with my old friend Saiki-san to brief him on the Six-Party Talks. Of course, Saiki-san is maybe new to the Six-Party Talks now, but the Six-Party Talks are not new to him -- because he has much experience with this, even before going to Washington, where we were in close contact on the Six-Party process. So I very much welcome him to the Six-Party process, and I think we will continue to have a great relationship. And in this process we will continue to really bring the U.S. and Japanese alliance to even greater heights and greater closeness.

So we talked about our efforts to try to complete what we call phase two. Obviously, we are having some difficulties right now getting what we need, which is a complete and correct declaration. So we talked a little about why we are having those problems and what might be done to overcome some of these problems. We also talked about what we might try to in phase three. And of course we would really like to see phase three to be the wrap-up phase, so that we can really get to the end of all the obligations that are set out in the September ’05 agreement -- that is, the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

So I think we have a lot of work ahead of us, but I think it is important to remember all the work we've been able to accomplish. And I think when we look at what we've been able to accomplish in the past, I think that we can take from that some strength and some sense of optimism that we can, provided we work very closely together and try to finish this job. So thank you very much.

QUESTION: Regarding the declaration, what kind of explanation did you hear from Mr. Hill about the declaration? And about the quantity of nuclear weapons, did you hear anything about that from Mr. Hill?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Maybe I should answer that. As you know, we've had some discussions with the DPRK about their declaration. In fact, I was in Beijing the other day, and we had some further discussions, which I briefed Saiki-san on. And with respect to the declaration, the concern is that, based on our discussions, if the DPRK submitted a declaration today, it would not be complete and correct. That is why we want to continue to have discussions so that when they do submit a declaration, it will be complete and correct.

So the problems have to do with some of their nuclear programs that they have not wanted to include in the declaration. Sometimes they've argued that these programs are finished, but in fact they need to tell us what they were about. Finally, with respect to the amount of plutonium, I'd rather not go into details of that, except to say that I did have a detailed discussion with Saiki-san and with his colleagues here in the Foreign Ministry. And we'll continue to have those detailed discussions, but not necessarily discussions that we can reveal every detail about to the public. 2

QUESTION: Is a complete and correct declaration something you have to have before you resume the Six-Party Talks? This is a question for Mr. Hill.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: You’re asking about when we have meetings. [Inaudible] Chinese chair about that. But I think what will need to happen is the DPRK needs to submit a complete and correct declaration, which is their obligation under the October agreement. I think they need to submit it to the Chinese chair. I think that the Chinese will want to discuss it with all the members of the Six Parties. Probably at that point we would have a Six-Party meeting. I don't want to rule out a Six-Party meeting before that, but I think the sequence of events is as I've outlined -- that is, they give a complete and correct declaration, the Chinese call a meeting to discuss the declaration, and then we probably would have a meeting to begin to discuss the next phase, phase three, and whether we can find a roadmap to eventually completing the job.

QUESTION: When you met with Mr. Kim Kye-gwan, did he invite you to the New York Philharmonic concert?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, I'm going to be at the inauguration of the new ROK president. Those events happen within 24 hours. So I'd be in South Korea, not North Korea.

QUESTION: What about your Secretary?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: She will be in South Korea as well.

QUESTION: Did you talk about the abduction issue today?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: We did. In fact, we did.