State Dep’t Daily Briefing, on N. Korea’s Nuke Disclosure

They’re trying to sound like Chris Hill’s message to the North Koreans will be that  the end of this year is a hard deadline, and that  we expect everything to be listed in there the first time.  It’s encouraging.  I’ll believe it when I see it.  Thanks to a reader for forwarding.

QUESTION:  Sean, can you tell us what Chris Hill is going to do in Pyongyang and why did he think it necessary to go twice within six months? 

MR. MCCORMACK:  Well, he is going to — he’s going to be traveling to Pyongyang and then up to Yongbyon to take a look at the state of progress on the disablement activities.  I believe there was a Japanese team that did the same thing.  He’s going to be meeting with Kim Gye Gwan in Pyongyang in the context of the six-party talks — talk to them about where we stand implementation of the agreement.  The end of the year is an important time.  That is a time when fulfillment of obligations previously made come due in terms of disablement, in terms of declarations and we obviously have some commitments in that regard and we intend to progress along the way, so that we are able to meet those obligations by the end of the year.  That’s the general tenor of the discussion.  I think that he will also talk to them specifically about the declaration and underline for them the importance of their declaration, their final declaration when they make it, be full and complete and deal with all aspects of their nuclear program.

QUESTION:  Do you expect him to go over different elements of the declaration, or do you think it would be just more general?

MR. MCCORMACK:  I think it would probably be more of a general discussion.  He will make it clear to them that all aspects of their nuclear program should be in this declaration.  It’s not something that’s going to be handed over directly to us.  It would be handed over to the Chinese, I believe, as chair of the six-party talks.  But I don’t know how the North Koreans are going to respond, whether they’re going to go into any detail about what — how their declaration is shaping up.  We’ll see after his meeting exactly what they say to him.

QUESTION:  And the other thing from last week, I don’t believe we’ve talked about in detail, but the financial talks.  I know that Treasury was in charge of them, but did you find those at all useful or did you find them —

MR. MCCORMACK:  I haven’t talked to anybody about it, Nicholas.

QUESTION:  Because there is someone from the State Department, right, someone from maybe the mission in New York? 

MR. MCCORMACK:  I think we had an official up there, but Treasury had the lead on it.  I honestly haven’t checked in on it. 

QUESTION:  Okay.

QUESTION:  Thank you.

QUESTION:  (Inaudible) about North Korea.  Was there a reason that Chris Hill thinks it’s necessary to remind the North Koreans that they — that the declaration needs to be full and complete?  Is there some thought emerging that it might not be?

MR. MCCORMACK:  No, it’s going to be an important element of what they produce as part of their commitments under the six-party talks.  But it’s also an opportunity to go up and see firsthand what they’ve done at Yongbyon.  And he was traveling to the region with the thought in mind that there probably would be a six-party envoys level meeting.  The Chinese have not yet announced anything yet, but I would look probably towards the end of next week as a likely time when there might be one.  So it was — he was able to — he was able to do several things at once with this trip.

Yeah.

QUESTION:  Does the U.S. expect that nuclear weapons will be declared as part of the full declaration? 

MR. MCCORMACK:  Well, we expect that they will make a full and complete declaration of their nuclear program.