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'We're Not Doing Non-Aggression Pacts': US Secretary of State Colin, Press Conference, August 1

US Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, interview with regional US news syndicates, Washington, August 1.

Question: North Korea... [Y]ou talked about this as essentially a multi-party kind of thing that's supposed to happen, but isn't the United States a big gorilla, thousand pound gorilla in the room? Really when it comes down to push and shove, it doesn't have to be a direct negotiation between us and them.

Secretary Powell: No, it has to be a negotiation among six parties who have equities. ... [W]hat North Korea has been doing is in direct contravention to understandings and agreements they have with some of their neighbors, especially South Korea, and it is the [former] Chinese President, Jiang Zemin, who said at Crawford last fall that the Chinese policy is a denuclearized peninsula. And therefore, North Korea has to explain and answer to China, South Korea, Japan, Russia, the United States the nature of their policies and everybody has an equity. So I think it is quite appropriate, in fact, I think it is essential that all of the parties be involved. Now once we are at these meetings, many conversations can take place. A formal setting is six, but I have been in many diplomatic settings where different parties among those in attendance can talk to one another, one-on-one, two-on-two and three-on-three. As I have said to North Korea, most recently at the ARF [ASEAN Regional Forum] meeting in Phnom Penh - and I said this openly to 20-odd nations that were represented there - anything we say to the North Koreans would be known to our friends and partners. There will be no secrets. And anything the North Koreans say to us will be shared with our friends and partners, because this is going to be an open, transparent process with our friends and partners. So I've been trying to make it clear to the North Koreans that no particular benefit is gained by insisting on a one-to-one discussion or one-to-one negotiations as they like to say. But there will be certainly an opportunity is a six-party meeting for them to say something directly to us if they choose to do so and for us to backwards. But the formal setting will be six.

Question: Is a non-aggression pact an option? There seems to be a bit of confusion about whether...

Secretary Powell: No, there's no confusion. We've said we're not doing non-aggression pacts. We don't have any. I don't know of a single non-aggression pact that I can think of. And we, as a practice, don't do that. But there are ways to talk about security, and there are ways to talk about intent, but they'll include a pact that will require some form of Senate confirmation or some form of legislative procedure. It's also important to point out that the North Koreans were given various assurances by the previous administration on a number of occasions beginning with the agreed framework. The North Koreans entered into an assurance agreement with the South Koreans two years before the agreed framework. And in the last several years of President Clinton's Administration, there were communiqués issued and other statements made that certainly demonstrated no hostile intent on the part of the United States. And in the face of that, the North Koreans went ahead and created a second track of enriched uranium capacity. So I believe that there are ways, and I have some ideas which I am not prepared to share with you today, on how their concerns about security and US intent can be dealt with and dealt with within a multilateral framework.

Question: Can you talk about the other parts of the pact, other things they are interested in like economic aid, diplomatic relations? ....

Secretary Powell: The President has said very often that he cares about the North Korean people and the terrible situation they find themselves in with respect to lack of food, an economy that is not functioning well. Others of our friends who follow North Korea have the same concerns, the Japanese, the South Koreans of course, the Chinese who provide $500 million a year - we estimate - in aid, direct aid as well as economic activity and 80 percent of their fuel. And so all of us are concerned about the plight of the North Korean people. And the President has made it clear that he is willing to assist them in relieving the difficulties that they are having. Japan has said so. In fact, last year Prime Minister Koizumi had even made rather specific generous suggestions or offers to what Japan might be able to do. So as we go forward, and as you look at what we're calling it - what was our nickname for it? Was it -

Question: The comprehensive approach?

Secretary Powell: No.

Question: The Bold Approach?

Secretary Powell: The Bold Approach. Yeah. There are benefits for North Korea for moving away from this kind of activity. And that's what [US Assistant Secretary of State] Mr. [James] Kelly went to tell them last October.

Question: There has been talk in theory about, I believe it was Deputy [US Defense] Secretary [Paul] Wolfowitz talked about fairly recently about the regime being on the verge of collapse. People have been talking about that for years. Wouldn't the collapse of that regime be utterly disastrous... There would probably even be a refugee run, the likes of which we haven't seen in years. Wouldn't a collapse like that be something of a disaster?

Secretary Powell: It would depend on what it collapsed into or what filled the vacuum. But people speculated about collapse to this regime, as you say, for many years and the regime is still there. I don't have a basis for saying there is an imminent collapse. My challenge is to work with not a collapse may or may not happen, but the situation is there. Right now there is a government there. It's been there for a lot of decades, and that's what I have to deal with. So I can't speculate on what the situation might or might not be. What the situation would be following a catastrophic collapse, I don't really know. I don't think it's anything that any of North Korea's neighbors at the moment wish to see. ... [A]nd our policy, the President's policy, is to work diplomatically with our partners and the North Koreans to find a diplomatic political solution to the problem.

Question: What's your sense of why Kim Jong-il did this [agree to multilateral talks]? Why is it in their self-interest to do it at this time? They've been resisting this for a long time.

Secretary Powell: I don't think - I think it's best that I not try to speculate on his decision-making process or what went through his mind. Let me just not totally duck your question by saying that clearly he must have seen that it was somehow in his interest to engage with his neighbors and with the United States in this multi-party forum, and we welcome that. The President is optimistic, as we said earlier today, that progress can be made.

Question: Do you think China is now prepared to apply the kind of leverage that you would like them to? I mean they seem to have the most control...

Secretary Powell: I think China is applying its influence. Let me use the word 'influence' rather than 'pressure' and 'leverage'. But they are using their influence with them. And North Korea, in a very effective and positive way - it was through Chinese efforts that we got to the trilateral step, and through Chinese efforts that we are at this next step. We seriously started to engage the Chinese on this I would say last year when President Bush and Jiang Zemin met at Crawford. And then earlier this year in February, when I went to China, I encouraged the Chinese to get more directly involved. Until that meeting in Beijing I had with them, the Chinese were taking the position, even after Crawford, look, you guys have to go talk to the North Koreans. We're all going to have to go talk to the North Koreans. And the Chinese kept saying, you don't understand, they won't talk to anybody but you. And so the only solution is you have to talk to the North Koreans. And my answer was we did talk to the North Koreans last October, and we ended up with a difficult problem in that they acknowledged that they had a second nuclear weapons program. And so this went back and forth, and finally the Chinese came and said we'll try. They tried, and they were very effective. And they sent senior leaders to Pyongyang and presented the case and succeeded in arranging for the trilateral discussions. We thanked them for it, and we told them at that time that this is a start, but we really want to get to a fuller forum, a bigger forum where all parties are represented who have an interest. Remember, our initial idea was nine. We could think of nine countries that might be a part, the more I remember. We had Australia - we had quite a few - the EU might have been a member. And so we went back and we did the three, the trilateral in April. We said to the Chinese, if we go down this road, it has to be expanded. And why not? Because we're going to tell our other friends that is going on. Transparency. The last time it was done, the South Koreans weren't really getting a role in the commitments that were being made and all the negotiations that were taking place. This time, openness and transparency. And the Chinese came here two Fridays ago in the next conference room. We talked for two hours and 40 minutes, and I laid out a way to get to multi-party discussions that went beyond trilateral and told them I think this is a way a lot of interest can be served. And the Chinese left last Friday night and came back the day before yesterday with President Hu speaking with President Bush and saying we got something. And then in the last 36 hours it's been confirmed through multiple channels. And so that's the Chinese using their influence, their leverage, if you will.

Question: So the deal is now [that] the non-aggression pact is off the table. It's food and other aid...

Secretary Powell: I didn't say that. ... [W]e don't do pacts, that's right. That part's fine. The question that was asked was, 'do you expect that there will be a way for you to assist in the future with economic assistance and what not'? We already provide food to North Korea. And I think I answered that, but I don't want to answer it quite the way you asked to suggest that we're going over there with a shopping bag and there's a trade - trading is about to begin at the very next meeting. If we solve this problem...

Question: This problem being?

Secretary Powell: Nuclear weapons and other behavior of theirs that is troublesome - [their involvement in trafficking in illegal] drugs. There are other issues, proliferation of weaponry and technology. So there are a number of issues that have to be solved. And as we go forward, this issue, if we see progress in this set of discussions, then I believe opportunities do open up for us to help the people of North Korea. But I don't want to quite answer it the way you asked it, that bing, bing, bing, bing. ...

Question: [A question on] Iran. A lot of people are theorizing that they are now the model state for developing nuclear capacity sort of in the modern transparent world. You get to within 12 to 18 months of a program by claiming and essentially disguising it as a civilian energy program, and then when you feel the moment is right you back out of your treaties and then you plow headlong towards a weapons program. And virtually, I mean, the press is loaded with certainly with analysis that would seem to indicate that. What is your take right now on Iran's nuclear energy project? And how concerned are you about where it's going?

Secretary Powell: We are concerned. We expressed that concern repeatedly throughout the course of this administration. We are particularly engaged with the Russians on their support of the projects such as we share. The Iranians, in recent months, have been found to be doing a number of things that we didn't know they were doing before that have now been brought to the attention of the IAEA. Some of the facilities that the IAEA is now looking at and wants more access to. I think the Russians now share our concern - and have used that word, "We share concerns you have" - that we have to be very careful going forward. As a first step, the international community is asking Iran to sign on to this Additional Protocol. Iran may or may not do that. We would not be satisfied until not only is the protocol signed, but any other indication that they might be using nuclear power activity for development of weapons has been dealt with. As you rightly say, you can enter into lots of agreements and then back out of them. We want to see whether or not Iran is so committed to creating an indigenous fuel cycle that they don't need outside help after a while. And we believe that the international community is more and more coming to the conclusion that we have to do everything possible to persuade the Iranians one way or another that this is not the direction in which they should be moving. It doesn't do much for the their people. It's destabilizing to the region. And benefits await the Iranian people at some point in the future if they abandon this kind of activity of trying to develop weapons of mass destruction and they foreswear support of terrorist activities. And this is a policy we had maintained for some time. I think what's changed in most recent months is that whereas it used to be just the United States sort of crying alone in the wilderness on this one, in light of recent revelations and information that's become available to IAEA and others, public people now share our concern. ...

Source: Powell Discusses North Korea, Iran, War on Terrorism, US State Department, Washington File, http://usinfo.state.gov/usinfo/products/washfile.html, August 3.

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