U.S. and Taiwan (2006)

U.S. Department of State

Daily Press Briefing

Sean McCormack, Spokesman
Washington, DC
October 26, 2006

12:42 p.m. EDT

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

QUESTION: A South Korean newspaper said on Tuesday that the Chinese police has arrested a pair of ethnic Koreans --

MR. MCCORMACK: Right.

QUESTION: -- for trying to sell about 1 kilogram of uranium.

MR. MCCORMACK: Right. I --

QUESTION: Are you informed of such an arrest or --

MR. MCCORMACK: I saw the news reports and I checked into it, and I can't find anything that substantiates the news report you cite. We will, of course, look into it. Very clearly, any instance of individuals trying to smuggle out material related to a nuclear weapons program, especially something like highly enriched uranium, would be of great concern to us and would be something that would be in contravention of Security Council Resolution 1718. China has pledged that they are going to take vigorous steps to enforce 1718, and we believe them. I think that they are already beginning to act in that regard.

QUESTION: But the --

MR. MCCORMACK: But this particular report I can't -- I have not to this point been able to substantiate.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

QUESTION: The South Korean Unification Minister announced certain measures today that appear to be in line with those demanded in 1718. What is your view of those measures and what does it say about the commitment of the South Koreans to enforcement of that resolution?

MR. MCCORMACK: I think it demonstrates that South Korea, like other members of the United Nations, are going to take this resolution very seriously and implementation of this resolution very seriously. That was certainly our take-away from the Secretary's trip to South Korea and her discussions.

Now each individual state in the way they implement this resolution is probably going to look a little bit different because each state will have a different kind of relationship with North Korea, and it will have different sets of national laws and it will -- each state will probably have its separate prism and how it views implementation of the resolution. But what's important is that you see a seriousness of effort on the part of individual UN member-states in implementing this resolution and that in implementing it they take a look at the core aspects of that resolution and faithfully implement the resolution.

And another important part is that you see cooperation among member-states of the UN, especially cooperation of states in that region. That's going to be very, very important because North Korea has demonstrated that it is quite deft at getting around the various national restrictions that are already in place, so it's going to be very important that member-states work closely together. That was part of the conversation that the Secretary started when she was on her trip. Bob Joseph had some follow-up meetings in each of the stops along the way -- in Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing and Moscow -- and those conversations are going to continue.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

QUESTION: Thank you. On sales to Taiwan, the Director of the American Institute in Taiwan Stephen Young held a press conference in Taipei yesterday and delivered the message that Taiwan needs to pass the USD $18 billion arms budget in this fall's legislative session. We know the U.S. has urged Taiwan to pass this budget for years. Why all of a sudden does the U.S. feel the urgency to give Taiwan a deadline? Any new decision being made?

MR. MCCORMACK: I can't tell you the particular reason for the timing of Mr. Young's remarks, only that it is, as you noted, a reiteration of what we have urged those authorities to do over a period of time. I can't speak to the timing of his remarks though.

QUESTION: And does --

MR. MCCORMACK: We're going to move on. Yeah.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

(The briefing was concluded at 1:21 p.m.)