[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 25 (Monday, June 27, 1994)]
[Pages 1327-1329]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on North Korea and an Exchange With Reporters

June 22, 1994

    The President. Good afternoon. Today I want to announce an important 
step forward in the situation in North Korea. This afternoon we have 
received formal confirmation from North Korea that it will freeze the 
major elements of its nuclear program while a new round of talks between 
our nations proceeds.
    In response, we are informing the North Koreans that we are ready to 
go forward with a new round of talks in Geneva early next month. North 
Korea has assured us that while we go forward with these talks it will 
not reload its five-megawatt reactor with new fuel or reprocess spent 
fuel. We have also been assured that the IAEA will be allowed to keep 
its inspectors and monitoring equipment in place at the Yongbyon nuclear 
facility, thus allowing verification of North Korea's agreement. We 
welcome this very positive development which restores the basis for 
talks between North Korea and the United States.
    In addition to addressing the nuclear issue, we are prepared to 
discuss the full range of security, political, and economic issues that 
affects North Korea's relationship with the international community. 
During these discussions we will suspend our efforts to pursue a 
sanctions resolution in the United Nations Security Council. We also 
welcome the agreement between South Korea and North Korea to pursue a 
meeting between their Presidents.
    I would like to thank President Carter for the important role he 
played in helping to achieve this step. These developments mark not a 
solution to the problem, but they do mark a new opportunity to find a 
solution. It is the beginning of a new stage in our efforts to pursue a 
nonnuclear Korean Peninsula. We hope this will lead to the resolution of 
all the issues that divide Korea from the international community.
    In close consultation with our allies, we will continue as we have 
over the past year and more to pursue our interests and our goals with 
steadiness, realism, and resolve. This approach is paying off, and we 
will continue it. This is good news. Our task now is to transform this 
news into a lasting agreement.
    Q. Mr. President, are you going to try to insist on finding out 
whether or not they have already built a bomb and getting the facts on 
any past violations as part of these talks?
    The President. Well, let me say that, first of all, we have been in 
touch with the North Koreans in New York almost at this moment. We will 
set up these talks, and we will have ample opportunity to discuss the 
range of issues that will be discussed in the talks. And we expect to 
discuss, obviously, all the issues that have divided us.
    Yes, Helen [Helen Thomas, United Press International].
    Q. Mr. President, what concessions did we make to bring this about? 
And why is it that you did not meet with President Carter face to face? 
Here's a man who actually met Kim Il-song, one of the few--our profiles 
may not jive and so forth. You would have had a great chance to debrief 
him, and instead, you talked to him on the telephone.
    The President. We talked to him for a long time on the telephone. 
The only reason we didn't is because I didn't want to ask him to come 
all the way up to Camp David, and we had planned to go up there for the 
weekend. And he decided and I decided there was--we know each other very 
well; we've known each other for 20 years--we decided we didn't need to 
do it; we could just have a long talk on the phone, and that's what we 
did.
    Q. Did we make any concessions----
    The President. No.
    Q. ----to the North Koreans to bring this about?
    The President. No. The only thing that we said was that we would 
suspend our efforts to pursue sanctions if there was a verifiable freeze 
on the nuclear program while the talks continued, which included no 
refueling of the reactor and no reprocessing.

[[Page 1328]]

    When President Carter came back he said--this was the cautionary 
note, you know, I raised in Chicago last Friday when I was asked to 
comment on this statement--he said that he believed that Kim Il-song had 
made that statement to him. We said that we would wait for official 
confirmation. We received it today. That confirmation gives us the basis 
for resuming the talks.
    Yes, Rita [Rita Braver, CBS News].
    Q. President Clinton, some of your aides are saying, ``We got 
everything we want here.'' Is this one of those cases where the other 
guy blinked?
    The President. I don't think it's useful for me to characterize it 
in that way. We know what the facts are. If you look at what we've done 
over the last year and a half, we have followed basically a two-pronged 
policy. We have worked as hard as we could to be firm, to be resolute, 
to bring our allies closer and closer together. And when I say our 
allies on this issue, I consider not just South Korea and Japan but 
Russia and China to be our allies. All of us have the same interests and 
the same desires.
    We also always kept the door open. I always said I did not seek a 
confrontation, I sought to give North Korea a way to become a part of 
the international community.
    When President Carter was invited and expressed a willingness to go 
to North Korea, I thought it gave us one opportunity that we would not 
otherwise have with a private citizen, but a distinguished American 
private citizen, to communicate the position of our administration and 
to do it--the very fact that he went, I think, was a gesture of the 
importance that we placed on resolving this matter and not just for 
ourselves but for the world.
    And so I think that we know what the facts are. We know we pursued a 
firm course. We know that President Carter went and made a very 
persuasive case, and we know what the North Koreans did. I don't think 
it's useful to characterize this in terms of winners and losers. I think 
the world will be the winner if we can resolve this. But we've not done 
it yet.
    Brit [Brit Hume, ABC News].
    Q. Mr. President, it would appear that President Carter may have 
either seen something that perhaps you and others may not have seen as 
clearly as he did, or that perhaps this was a more closely coordinated 
effort between you and Mr. Carter than it may have appeared at the time. 
Is either of those things correct?
    The President. Well, I don't know that I would characterize it in 
that way. He called me; we talked about it. I wanted to make sure he had 
adequate briefings. I have always--I have, as you probably know, I 
have--and I've said this I believe publicly--I have sought other means 
of personally communicating to Kim Il-song that the desires of the 
United States and the interests of the United States and the policy of 
the United States was to pursue a nonnuclear Korean Peninsula and to 
give North Korea a way of moving with dignity into the international 
community and away from an isolated path, which we found quite 
disturbing for all the reasons that I've already said.
    It seemed to me that when President Carter expressed a willingness 
to go and they had given him an invitation of some longstanding to come, 
that that gave us the opportunity to give North Korea a direct message 
to their leader from a distinguished American citizen, without in any 
way undermining the necessary and correct government-to-government 
contacts that we had going on at other levels.
    President Carter, I think, was very faithful in articulating the 
policy of our Government. And I think that that provided a forum in 
which the North Korean leader, Kim Il-song, could respond as he did. And 
I'm very pleased about it.
    When we were called last Thursday and this whole issue was discussed 
and we said what we said about we hope that their message meant that 
they were willing to freeze their nuclear program, then they said they 
were. Then we got formal confirmation today of the definition of freeze. 
Their definition was the same as ours. We had the basis to go forward. 
I'm very happy about it.
    Yes, Wolf [Wolf Blitzer, CNN]. Go ahead.
    Q. There will be critics, as you well know, who will argue that once 
again the North Koreans have succeeded in stalling, and clandestinely, 
this will give them an opportunity while their negotiators talk to U.S. 
negotiators in Geneva to pursue their nuclear am- 

[[Page 1329]]

bitions, which they're not about to give up. How do you verify that they 
are sincere in this effort?
    The President. Well, that was a big part of the statement, of 
course, of the letter that we got, not just that there would be an 
agreement to freeze the program but that the agreement be verifiable. 
The IAEA inspectors and the monitoring equipment on the ground can be 
and will be used to verify the commitment not to reprocess and not to 
refuel.
    If we didn't have some way of verifying it, you and I wouldn't be 
having this conversation at this moment.
    Yes, one last question.
    Q. Mr. President, could you tell us, beyond just the focus of the 
talks, could you tell us what your longer range view is? Do you see the 
Koreas being reunified? What do you see happening, coming out of all 
this?
    The President. Well, I think, first of all, that is a decision for 
the peoples and their leaders in South and North Korea to resolve. What 
the United States wants is for the agreement that the Koreas made in 
1991 to make the Peninsula nonnuclear to be carried through.
    The United States wants the NPT to be a success with regard to North 
Korea. The United States wants North Korea, in whatever relationship it 
pursues with South Korea--that is up to them--to move toward becoming an 
integral and responsible member of the international community. That 
will auger well for the peace and prosperity of the peoples of north 
Asia as well as for the security interest of the United States. That is 
what we have pursued with great diligence, and I'm very hopeful that 
these talks will bring us closer to that.
    As I said, this does not solve the problem, but it certainly gives 
us the basis for seeking a solution. And I'm quite pleased.
    Thank you very much.
    Q. Have you called Jimmy Carter?
    The President. Oh, I have. I called him, talked to him about the 
letter. We had a very good talk, told him again I was glad he went, and 
I thought it was a trip worth taking, a risk worth taking, and I was 
very pleased.
    Q. You didn't mind his criticism of your sanctions policy? He was 
pretty blunt, wasn't he?
    The President. No. No, as long as the agreement--like I said, we've 
been friends a long time. The agreement was that he would faithfully 
communicate our position. I am absolutely convinced he did it, and I'm 
absolutely convinced now that they have met the agreement. And I feel 
good about it.

Note: The President spoke at 5:34 p.m. in the Briefing Room at the White 
House.