U.S. - North Korea

Progress Being Made on North Korea Nuclear Issue, Rice Says
Secretary urges full cooperation from North Korea

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meets with Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura February 27. (© AP Images)

By Merle D. Kellerhals Jr.
Staff Writer
February 28, 2008

Washington –- The United States believes that considerable progress has been achieved on removing the threat of nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula, and even more can be expected with improved cooperation from the North Korean regime.

The essential ingredient is the political will to end the nuclear threat completely, says Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"We have made progress on disablement [of the Yongbyon nuclear facilities].  But we do now need the declaration of the North Koreans that would be complete and would, in its accuracy, show us that there is a way forward," Rice says.

The North Koreans have disabled the Yongbyon nuclear facilities, but they are also required in the second phase of a multilateral 2005 agreement to produce a declaration of their entire nuclear program.  In return, North Korea would receive 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil and the termination of some U.S. sanctions.  The full agreement commits North Korea to abandon all nuclear weapons and development programs for economic and diplomatic benefits.

Rice has said that the United States also has pledged to meet with North Korean leaders one-on-one to foster better security relations and a lessening of tensions.

North Korea has produced weapons-grade plutonium at Yongbyon, which can be used to construct a nuclear weapon.  Uranium enrichment creates a means for developing fissile materials used in nuclear weapons.  The United States also wants to be certain of any previous transfers of nuclear technology by the North Koreans.

"I can tell you that I have affirmed at every stop that I believe that the progress that we have made thus far, particularly on the disablement, is worthy of our continued efforts to move this process forward," Rice said during a joint briefing with Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura in Tokyo February 27.

The secretary was completing the final stop of a three-nation visit to Northeast Asia after meeting with senior government officials in South Korea and China.  Rice held extensive talks with Asian leaders on an array of regional security and political issues, but the Six-Party Talks on North Korea was at the center of her efforts. 

"Given that we are going to move on to a more difficult phase even than the disabling phase, which will have to have the accounting for the material that was made, for weaponization and for dismantlement in a verifiable way, we need to establish confidence in this phase that there is a prospect for real denuclearization in the next phase," Rice said.

"That is also the phase in which there is anticipated to be considerable talk about political engagement on the way to normalization [of relations between the United States and North Korea]," she said.

Rice said that as the process of shutting down North Korea's nuclear programs continues, progress can be made toward ending the state of war on the Korean Peninsula, and the building of long-term normalization.  She said it would be worthwhile to institutionalize some of the cooperation among the various parties who have been part of the Six-Party Talks, which include China, Japan, North and South Korea, Russia and the United States.

"Cooperation among the major powers in this region on issues like counterterrorism, [weapons] proliferation, perhaps even disaster relief could benefit Northeast Asia," Rice said.

Rice also said that the United States is in close consultation with its allies in the Six-Party Talks.  "And any steps that the United States will take, we will be consulting with our allies as we contemplate taking them.  We believe that if all parties are prepared to exercise political will, that we can achieve considerable progress toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," she said.

Progress was being made on the second phase to such an extent that Rice asked Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill to stay in Beijing a day longer to wrap up additional details before traveling on to Bangkok, Thailand, and to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.