Christopher Hill Remarks in Bejing, China

Remarks in Bejing, China

Christopher Hill, Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
St. Regis Hotel
Beijing, China
January 22, 2007

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I’m heading back to Washington. I’ve briefed Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing, and I have to brief Washington on the discussions in Berlin. I had lengthy discussions last night with my counterpart Wu Dawei. We agreed on the need to try to get the Six Party Talks going as soon as possible. He will talk to the other participants, and we hope that the Chinese government will be able to announce soon the start up of the talks.

We’ve had a lot of very useful discussions in the past week with various participants. I know that the South Koreans will be here soon; in fact I just got off the phone with Chun Young-woo. So I think we will see if we can make some progress and get together.

QUESTION: What kind of progress are you looking at now compared to the last rounds?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: As you know, we felt we should have done more in the December round. We want to get going on implementing the September (2005) statement. We have some ideas for doing that, and we’ve had some good discussions all around on how to do that. But I want to emphasize that whether we succeed or not will depend on what happens when we get together and negotiate in the Six Party Talks.

QUESTION: inaudible

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: We have not yet determined where they’ll be, although that will not be a problem. We will come up with a place. I think Treasury -- We also have to fine tune a date for the talks. But I think they will be very soon -- probably either at the same time or even before the Six Party Talks. But it depends on the scheduling, we are really down to the question of logistics now.

QUESTION: In the December session of the talks, progress seemed to unravel on Kim’s lack of authorization to negotiate and also the North Koreans bringing the financial sanctions issue into the Six Party Talks. What gives you any more confidence now that those two factors aren’t going to derail any new sessions?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I don’t want to go into the specifics, but I do believe we have a basis for making progress at the Six Party Talks. People ask if I’m optimistic; I’d rather not make a bet on the game that I& rsquo;m playing in. But I think that, based on all the consultations we’ ve had in the last week or so, I think we have a basis for getting together as soon as possible in the Six Party process and making progress.

QUESTION: Has the Six Party Talks been impacted at all by the Chinese testing of an anti-satellite weapon?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: My government’s position on that is pretty clear. We certainly conveyed that to the Chinese, but I would say the Six Party Talks is on a different track.

QUESTION: Did they give any explanation for this?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Again, we had some private discussions, but let me allow the Defense Department and the State Department to speak on that issue. I don’t want to be the spokesman on that issue today.

QUESTION: Mr. Assistant Secretary, when do you think the talks are going to be? You said the Chinese will be announcing it soon?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: They have to do consultations with all the parties, it doesn’t just depend on us or the DPRK or the Chinese. They need to also talk to the Russians and the Japanese and the South Koreans. We have every reason to believe that they’ll try to do it soon as everybody is ready, and our sense is everyone will be ready very soon.

QUESTION: Will Berlin be the format for the financial sanctions talks?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I think probably the financial talks will -- We& rsquo;ve talked about some venues, but I think Berlin was a one-off venue having to do with the importance of the schedules.

QUESTION: Is Beijing one of those venues?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Again, I don’t want to get into where we’ ll be, but I know we can work that out.

Hey, I really got to catch a plane, I’m really sorry. OK, bye-bye, next time.

Released on January 22, 2007

ENDS

© Scoop Media