A Regional Discussion of the Six-Party Process: Challenges and Opportunities in North Korea

Transcript

EVANS REVERE: The task that Jack assigned me today was to describe the direction of the six-party talks and to speak about U.S. objectives for those talks. And I intend to do that. But in keeping with the main theme of this forum, I will also try to address what I see are the opportunities presented by the six-party talks and, in particular, the opportunities being provided by this process for the DPRK to break out of its growing international isolation.

As the title of this forum also indicates, we are facing some challenges as well as opportunities on the Korean Peninsula. In fact, the challenges that are facing us as we seek to secure true peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula are significant indeed. We were, of course, reminded of this recently, when Pyongyang issued what I believe was a very unfortunate and troubling statement on February 10th. Yet, if the DPRK, if North Korea follows the path to the peaceful resolution of the nuclear issue that the U.S. and our allies and partners have laid out, the opportunities of the current situation that we're in are also great. The door is open for the DPRK, by addressing the concerns of the international community, to vastly improve the lives of its people, to enhance its own security, to normalize its relations with the United States and others, and in fact to raise its stature in the world.

Unfortunately, in my view, this is a reality and a prospect that the DPRK has yet to recognize. Instead, North Korea has taken steps that only isolate it further from the international community. As I said, on the 10th of February, North Korea issued a Foreign Ministry statement that, among other things, claimed that nuclear weapons are "for self-defense to cope with the Bush administration's ever more undisguised policy to isolate and stifle" the DPRK. It also said that "we are compelled to suspend our participation in the talks for an indefinite period" until the United States abandons its "hostile policy."

In this and other statements, the North Koreans have continued to mischaracterize U.S. policy toward the DPRK by their frequent references to this so-called hostility. One of my tasks today, rather than dwelling on what U.S. policy is not, is to try to convey to you what U.S. policy is. And in this connection, the most senior levels of my government have made very clear what our policy approach is toward the DPRK. The essence of that approach was spelled out by Secretary Rice, who said in her confirmation hearing just a few short weeks ago, "We have made clear to the North Korean regime that the president of the United States has said that the United States has no intention to attack North Korea, to invade North Korea, that multilateral security assurances would be available to North Korea--to which the United States would be a party--if North Korea is prepared to give up its nuclear weapons program verifiably and irreversibly."

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