Obviously these are sorts of comments that are just inappropriate for discussing relations with other states. I don't think there's anything people in the ROK and the U.S. need to be too concerned about, I think we should probably not overreact to comments that really have no basis and fact, and seem to be entirely propagandistic and aimed at domestic audiences whoever they are.
If you've been to in the States lately you'll know it's quite a political season. We have several political candidates running for the president. Absolutely nobody has suggested they want this problem. Nobody has suggested they are interested in giving the DPRK a better deal, than the one we put on the table. So I would say, from the DPRK's point of view, it's time to settle now.
We need to get that declaration as Ambassador Chun said, we really have lost a lot of time in this process and we need to go forward.
I must say as difficult as the declaration is, I think the next phase would be more even difficult as we try to get North Korea to finally do away with its nuclear ambitions, and so we have a lot of work to do and frankly speaking, we're really at the point where we need this declaration very soon.
Released on April 1, 2008
US - South Korea (ROK)
US - North Korea
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