U.S. Relations With the People's Republic of China (2008)

U.S. Department of State

Press Availability With Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aleksey Borodavkin

Christopher R. Hill, Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
Moscow, Russia
May 30, 2008

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ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Thank you very much. Let me say that it was a great pleasure to come here to Moscow, to meet my new colleague Deputy Minister Borodavkin, and to brief him on how the U.S. sees the process in the Six-Party meetings. As you know, I was previously in Beijing for some discussions with the DPRK as well as with the Chinese. The South Koreans I met here, and I saw the Japanese in Beijing.

This rounds out for me a rather intense week of consultations. The U.S. is very pleased with the level of communication and cooperation between the U.S. and the Russian Federation on this issue.

This is not an easy issue to resolve. We have worked on this for many years now, and we do feel that we are making some progress. But we also feel that we are coming to an important juncture in the process. We are hopeful that we can get through this phase and get on to the next phase, which we hope will lead to the final and complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. As I said, it is a very difficult and at times slow-moving process, but we feel very positive in that the U.S. and Russia are working closely together, have very similar outlooks on how to address this. We hope that we can work together in the future as we get on to what we hope will be the final phase.

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QUESTION: Could you be more specific about supplying alternative fuels to North Korea?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: We discussed the fact that both our countries are engaged in fulfilling obligations to provide heavy fuel oil, as you know. South Korea and China are also providing some heavy fuel oil equivalents. And while Russia is completing its current shipment, the U.S. is gearing up for the next shipment. So I think we are doing well on that together.

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QUESTION: When do you expect the next Six-Party Talks?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: When I talked to the Chinese representative a couple of days ago, they were working to try to organize a Six-Party meeting, maybe at the head of delegation level. I think the Chinese are going to be consulting with all of this on this and will come up with a date.

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