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

U.S Department of State

Interview With Robert McMahon of Council on Foreign Relations

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Washington, DC
December 18, 2008

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QUESTION: The -- just keeping on the nonproliferation front and the North Korea file, you've been dealing with this most recently -- can you state what has been the value of the U.S. engagement policy that's been unfolding the last couple of years? How do you tell someone that despite this latest backsliding, this has been a worthwhile move? What are the tangible benefits?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, you start with the fact that they haven't made plutonium since the Six-Party agreement of September 2005. And that's an important point. They have shut down the reactor. They've disabled certain elements of it, blown up the cooling tower. It's not the permanent disablement that we look for, but it's a series of important steps. We have negotiated a verification protocol to which they've agreed. Unfortunately, some of the clarifications that they made to us privately that needed to be made so that there were no loopholes in that verification protocol, they refused to write down. And that's where things broke down.

But it also has been a value because the North Koreans are in a situation in which they are confronting Russia, China, the United States, South Korea, and Japan so that they can't just make this a bilateral problem with the United States. And the fuel oil shipments that they need, they need not just from the United States but also from South Korea, since South Korea has made clear that their relationship with North Korea depends in part on how denuclearization goes. The North can't enjoy certain benefits while continuing to stall on the nuclear file.

But I think much has already been achieved here. I think that within the context of the Six-Party Talks, you ultimately will get a verification protocol that allows us to deal with a lot of very troubling activities, many of which we have learned more about as the process of diplomacy has gone on.

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