17 February 2004
Kelly Hopeful North Korea Will Abandon Nuclear Weapons
-Asst. Secretary James Kelly’s Feb. 13 remarks in Washington
There’s hope North Korea will abandon its nuclear weapons programs, says James A. Kelly, assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific affairs.
The decisions by Libya, Ukraine, and South Africa to abandon their nuclear weapons programs, Kelly said, “demonstrate that there is real reason for hope that North Korea will eventually respond” to international demands.
Kelly made his remarks at a research conference on North Korea held in Washington February 13, which was sponsored by the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, the Korea Economic Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, the Chosun Ilbo, the Ford Foundation, and the Kookmin Bank.
Kelly will lead the U.S. delegation that will be heading for Beijing February 25 for the second round of Six-Party Talks — the United States, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea (DPRK), Japan, China, and Russia — aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear threat.
“We expect that the round will result in further progress toward a permanent solution, even if the progress may not be readily apparent,” Kelly predicted.
Kelly stressed that at the talks the United States will be insisting on “complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear programs.”
While the United States is “prepared to listen carefully and respond to all positions,” Kelly said, “We will not be satisfied with a resolution that is not verifiable.”
The burden is not on the international community but on North Korea “to come clean,” according to Kelly. “As the Libya case illustrates, there are ways that North Korea can do this as a sovereign country. It is certainly in North Korea’s interests, as it is in Libya’s.”
The United States, he added, “will not be satisfied with a reversible solution. This must be once and for all. North Korea’s nuclear programs and facilities must be dismantled, and never reconstituted.”
President Bush, Kelly said, “is committed to a diplomatic solution and is convinced that multilateral talks are the appropriate diplomatic forum” for interacting with North Korea.
Kelly said that North Korea’s “self-induced isolation” has caused it to fall further and further behind the dynamic East Asian economy and the world. “North Korea’s best hope is to embrace the opportunity presented by the Six Party Talks and chart a new course.
“We and the other parties realize that moving away from isolation and estrangement toward openness and engagement will be a major undertaking and we are willing to help,” Kelly said.
The assistant secretary acknowledged that establishing the grounds for normalcy and peaceful co-existence will be difficult and stressed that the “process of transformation” must begin with a fundamental decision inside North Korea itself.
“We also need a strong commitment to timely action. Given the history of broken and unsuccessful agreements with the DPRK, we cannot afford to leave the hard work for the end of the implementation process,” Kelly said.
Following are Kelly’s prepared remarks:
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http://usembassy.state.gov/ircseoul/wwwh5278.html
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