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President Bush Discusses North Korea
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For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary June 26, 2008

President Bush Discusses North Korea Rose Garden

˙ /news/releases/2008/06/20080626-9.wm.v.html ˙˙Presidential Remarks
˙˙Audio

˙˙˙˙˙ In Focus: Global Diplomacy

7:40 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. The policy of the United States is a Korean
Peninsula free of all nuclear weapons. This morning, we moved a step closer
to that goal, when North Korean officials submitted a declaration of their
nuclear programs to the Chinese government as part of the six-party talks.

The United States has no illusions about the regime in Pyongyang. We remain
deeply concerned about North Korea's human rights abuses, uranium
enrichment activities, nuclear testing and proliferation, ballistic missile
programs, and the threat it continues to pose to South Korea and its
neighbors.

Yet we welcome today's development as one step in the multi-step process
laid out by the six-party talks between North Korea, China, Japan, Russia,
South Korea, and the United States.

Last year, North Korea pledged to disable its nuclear facilities. North
Korea has begun disabling its Yongbyon nuclear facility -- which was being
used to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. This work is being overseen
by officials from the United States and the IAEA. And to demonstrate its
commitment, North Korea has said it will destroy the cooling tower of the
Yongbyon reactor in front of international television cameras tomorrow.

Last year, North Korea also pledged to declare its nuclear activity. With
today's declaration, North Korea has begun describing its plutonium-related
activities. It's also provided other documents related to its nuclear
programs going back to 1986. It has promised access to the reactor core and
waste facilities at Yongbyon, as well as personnel related to its nuclear
program. All this information will be essential to verifying that North
Korea is ending its nuclear programs and activities.

The six-party talks are based on a principle of "action for action." So in
keeping with the existing six-party agreements, the United States is
responding to North Korea's actions with two actions of our own:

First, I'm issuing a proclamation that lifts the provisions of the Trading
with the Enemy Act with respect to North Korea.

And secondly, I am notifying Congress of my intent to rescind North Korea's
designation as a state sponsor of terror in 45 days. The next 45 days will
be an important period for North Korea to show its seriousness of its
cooperation. We will work through the six-party talks to develop a
comprehensive and rigorous verification protocol. And during this period,
the United States will carefully observe North Korea's actions -- and act
accordingly.

The two actions America is taking will have little impact on North Korea's
financial and diplomatic isolation. North Korea will remain one of the most
heavily sanctioned nations in the world. The sanctions that North Korea
faces for its human rights violations, its nuclear test in 2006, and its
weapons proliferation will all stay in effect. And all United Nations
Security Council sanctions will stay in effect as well.

The six-party process has shed light on a number of issues of serious
concern to the United States and the international community. To end its
isolation, North Korea must address these concerns. It must dismantle all
of its nuclear facilities, give up its separated plutonium, resolve
outstanding questions on its highly enriched uranium and proliferation
activities, and end these activities in a way that we can fully verify.

North Korea must also meet other obligations it has undertaken in the
six-party talks. The United States will never forget the abduction of
Japanese citizens by the North Koreans. We will continue to closely
cooperate and coordinate with Japan and press North Korea to swiftly
resolve the abduction issue.

This can be a moment of opportunity for North Korea. If North Korea
continues to make the right choices, it can repair its relationship with
the international community -- much as Libya has done over the past few
years. If North Korea makes the wrong choices, the United States and our
partners in the six-party talks will respond accordingly. If they do not
fully disclose and end their plutonium, their enrichment, and their
proliferation efforts and activities, there will be further consequences.

Multilateral diplomacy is the best way to peacefully solve the nuclear
issue with North Korea. Today's developments show that tough multilateral
diplomacy can yield promising results. Yet the diplomatic process is not an
end in itself. Our ultimate goal remains clear: a stable and peaceful
Korean Peninsula, where people are free from oppression, free from hunger
and disease, and free from nuclear weapons. The journey toward that goal
remains long, but today we have taken an important step in the right
direction.

I'll take a couple of questions.

Mike.

Q Mr. President, thank you very much. After declaring them a member of the
"axis of evil," and then after that underground nuclear tests that North
Korea conducted in 2006, I'm wondering if you ever doubted getting to this
stage. And also, I'm wondering if you have a message for the North Korean
people.

THE PRESIDENT: I knew that the United States could not solve, or begin to
solve, this issue without partners at the table. In order for diplomacy to
be effective, there has to be leverage. You have to have a -- there has to
be consequential diplomacy.

And so I worked hard to get the Chinese and the South Koreans and the
Japanese and the Russians to join with us in sending a concerted message to
the North Koreans, and that is, that if you promise and then fulfill your
promises to dismantle your nuclear programs, there's a better way forward
for you and the people. In other words, as I said in the statement, it's
action for action.

It took a while for the North Koreans to take the six-party talks
seriously, and it also took there to be concerted messages from people
other than the United States saying that if you choose not to respond
positively there will be consequences.

And so I'm -- it's been a -- multilateral diplomacy is difficult at times.
It's hard to get people heading in the same direction, and yet we were able
to do so along -- our partners helped a lot, don't get me wrong.

The message to the North Korean people is, is that we don't want you to be
hungry; we want you to have a better life; that our concerns are for you,
not against you; and that we have given your leadership a way forward to
have better relations with the international community. This is a society
that is regularly going through famines. When I campaigned for President, I
said we will never use food as a diplomatic weapon. In North Korea, we have
been concerned that food shipments sometimes don't make it to the people
themselves -- in other words, the regime takes the food for their own use.

So my message to the people is, is that we'll continue to care for you and
worry about you, and at the same time, pursue a Korean Peninsula that's
nuclear weapons free. And today we have taken a step, and it's a very
positive step, but there's more steps to be done.

Deb.

Q Mr. President, what do you say to critics who claim that you've accepted
a watered-down declaration just to get something done before you leave
office? I mean, you said that it doesn't address the uranium enrichment
issue, and, of course, it doesn't address what North Korea might have done
to help Syria build its reactor.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first, let me review where we have been. In the past,
we would provide benefits to the North Koreans in the hope that they would
fulfill a vague promise. In other words, that's the way it was before I
came into office.

Everybody was concerned about North Korea possessing a nuclear weapon;
everybody was concerned about the proliferation activities. And yet the
policy in the past was, here are some benefits for you, and we hope that
you respond. And, of course, we found they weren't responding. And so our
policy has changed, that says, in return for positive action, in return for
verifiable steps, we will reduce penalties. And there are plenty of
restrictions still on North Korea.

And so my point is this, is that -- we'll see. They said they're going to
destroy parts of their plant in Yongbyon. That's a very positive step --
after all, it's the plant that made plutonium. They have said in their
declarations, if you read their declarations of September last year, they
have said specifically what they will do. And our policy, and the statement
today, makes it clear we will hold them to account for their promises. And
when they fulfill their promises, more restrictions will be eased. If they
don't fulfill their promises, more restrictions will be placed on them.
This is action for action. This is we will trust you only to the extent
that you fulfill your promises.

So I'm pleased with the progress. I'm under no illusions that this is the
first step; this isn't the end of the process, this is the beginning of the
process of action for action. And the point I want to make to our fellow
citizens is that we have worked hard to put multilateral diplomacy in
place, because the United States sitting down with Kim Jong-il didn't work
in the past. Sitting alone at the table just didn't work.

Now, as I mentioned in my statement, there's a lot more verification that
needs to be done. I mentioned our concerns about enrichment. We expect the
North Korean regime to be forthcoming about their programs. We talked about
proliferation. We expect them to be forthcoming about their proliferation
activities and cease such activities. I mentioned the fact that we're
beginning to take inventory, because of our access to the Yongbyon plant,
about what they have produced, and we expect them to be forthcoming with
what they have produced and the material itself.

So today I'm just talking about the first step of a multi-step process. And
I want to thank our partners at the six-party talks. It's been incredibly
helpful to achieve -- the beginnings of achieving a vision of a
nuclear-free Korean Peninsula to have the Chinese to be as robustly
involved as they are. You notice that the North Koreans passed on their
documents to the Chinese; after all, we're all partners in the six-party
talks.

The other thing I want to assure our friends in Japan is that this process
will not leave behind -- leave them behind on the abduction issue. The
United States takes the abduction issue very seriously. We expect the North
Koreans to solve this issue in a positive way for the Japanese. There's a
lot of folks in Japan that are deeply concerned about what took place. I
remember meeting a mother of a child who was abducted by the North Koreans
right here in the Oval Office. It was a heart-wrenching moment to listen to
the mother talk about what it was like to lose her daughter. And it is
important for the Japanese people to know that the United States will not
abandon our strong ally and friend when it comes to helping resolve that
issue.

Today is a positive day; it's a positive step forward. There's more work to
be done, and we've got the process in place to get it done in a verifiable
way.

Thank you.

END 7:53 A.M. EDT

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