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

U.S. Department of State

Remarks En route Berlin, Germany

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
En route Berlin, Germany
June 23, 2008

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QUESTION: Thank you. I have two questions on North Korea. First, we expect so much things will happen this week out of North Korea. But the Japanese people feel -- some Japanese people feel some sort of disappointment because we don't -- we haven't got any real progress on the abduction issue. We -- you are ready for removing North Korea from the sponsors terrorist list. So my question is: How do you explain to Japanese people on U.S. intention and how will U.S. facilitate the progress on abduction issue from now?

And the second question is: Could you tell me about the timing of the ministerial meeting on the six-party talks?

SECRETARY RICE: There has been no ministerial meeting set at this point. We will see when it is appropriate to have a ministerial meeting for the six parties.

In terms of the ending of phase two of the denuclearization efforts vis-…-vis North Korea, we will see if North Korea, indeed, delivers to China, which is after all the chair of the denuclearization group, if they deliver to China a declaration that, as we've said, would have to be verifiable as complete and accurate. It would be an important step. The North Koreans -- we also have to do a verification protocol with North Korea so that we could make certain that we did have the means to verify. And so we've not -- the Chinese have not received that yet, and so it's premature to judge what steps the United States and the other members of the six-party talks would take.

As to the abduction issue -- or I should say, of course, if the declaration is there then the second phase does anticipate that the United States would, as a part of several actions that others -- that states are taking, that the United States would, indeed -- the President would notify the Congress of our intention to de-list. That takes then 45 days before it goes into effect, in which time we would continue to monitor and assess what North Korea's doing to live up to its obligations.

Now, we've been very clear that the United States is not going to set aside or forget the Japanese abduction issue. Indeed, I think it's fair to say that the bilateral talks that Japan and North Korea have had are in no small part due to the efforts of the United States to press North Korea on this issue.

And so I would hope that Japanese people would recognize that, that this was an issue that was going nowhere until the United States pressed the issue. In fact, it is my understanding that the North Koreans took some -- I think they were described by Japan as small steps. And Japan, in return, took some steps. So we will see. But this issue is not going away. It's not going away for Japan; it's not going away for the United States and we're going to continue to press North Korea to make certain that this issue is dealt with.

Japan is America's -- one of America's strongest allies in Asia and we recognize the -- I should say one of America's strongest allies in the world -- and we recognize the sensitivity of this issue. It is a deep humanitarian issue. It is a wounding issue that this kind of thing could have been allowed to happen. And the President has met with family members of the abducted. We have never -- we've never made a statement in which we did not raise this issue publicly and privately. And so the Japanese people can be assured that it is an issue of extreme importance for the United States and we're going to continue to press on this issue.

Thank you.

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