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

U.S. Department of State

Remarks With Korean Special Representative Kim Sook

Christopher R. Hill, Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
Kim Sook, Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Seoul, South Korea
October 3, 2008

[Note: Special Representative Kim Sook spoke in Korean, and his comments are not included.]

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, good to see you all. I've just come from briefing Ambassador Kim Sook on my trip to Pyongyang. I went with a fairly small delegation including Ambassador Sung Kim. Many of you may have heard that Sung Kim has just been approved by the U.S. Senate for the Ambassador rank. So I was with Ambassador Sung Kim and Paul Haenle from the NSC staff and Eliot Kang, who is from our nonproliferation area.

We went to Pyongyang to have substantive -- and what turned out to be very substantive and very lengthy -- discussions about the issue of the verification protocol to get through the second phase. As I said, the meetings were indeed very lengthy and indeed very substantive.

I briefed the Korean government on these meetings. From here, I will go and meet with my Japanese counterpart, Ambassador Saiki, to brief the Japanese government. Tomorrow my plan is to go to Beijing to brief the Chinese, and also I will see the Russian Ambassador there. And finally tomorrow night, I will go back to Washington. And that's when I will get the opportunity to brief Secretary Rice on these discussions.

So while I know that you are very interested in what happened, and what the results are, and what it means for the Six-Party Talks, I would really ask your indulgence. Because I really do need to brief the other Six-Party members, including my own Secretary of State, before I brief the press. What I can tell you is the discussions in Pyongyang were quite substantive. We went into great detail on things. They were quite lengthy. They were conducted primarily with my counterpart there, Mr. Kim Kye Gwan, and his team. I did have the opportunity to meet with the Foreign Minister there and to talk to him about the issue. And I also met with a member of the Korean People's Army, General Ri Chan Bok. And we had a general exchange of views.

So I will right now, I think, get on to see my Japanese counterpart and then go on with these consultations. And we will take it from there. I know that probably our ministers will be in touch with each other. And we know that this has been a very difficult - very tough - phase of the Six-Party process. But I think I can assure you all that all of our delegations are working very hard to see what we can do.

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