TRANSCRIPT

Ambassador Christopher R. Hill

Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs

Global Leadership Speaker Series

March 25, 2008

Frederick Kempe: Good afternoon. Good afternoon, I’m Fred Kempe. I’m President and CEO of Atlantic Council and I’d like to welcome you to this installment of our Global Leadership Speaker Series featuring Ambassador Christopher Hill.

I won’t introduce Chris. I’ll leave it to our executive committee member from our board, Frank Kramer, to do that-except to say that we’ve known each other a very long time. Dating back to the mid ‘80s in Poland and then in the first democratic elections in South Korea. And it’s wonderful to have you here and following your incredibly distinguished career where you’ve done so much service to our country. And for that matter, I’d say also to the world.

Our mission here at the Atlantic Council is to renew the Atlantic Community for 21^st century global challenges. And this speaker series brings key American and European policy makers to the Council to discuss how best to deal with the global challenges that we face together. I’d like to thank our board member, David Aufhauser and his company, UBS, for their generous support of this Global Leadership Speaker Series from the very beginning.

We were fortunate to have as the first speaker in this series Nick Burns, then the Undersecretary for Political Affairs of the State Department, who used his words to define a global agenda for the Euro-Atlantic Community. He spoke of a dramatic and undeniable shift in the European-American relationship. Perhaps the most important of a century. Likely to be felt for a generation to come. And that the United States policy towards Europe is no longer about Europe, it’s about the rest of the world. He said, “It’s about what we together have to do to be effective and purposeful around the world and in all regions of the world.”

We for many years have had an Asia program at the Atlantic Council, but this new global focus on the Atlantic relations makes the Asia Program more important than ever before. I want to thank Joe Snyder who’s the director of the Asia Program for bringing together this event tonight along with his deputy, Patrick deGategno.

Often our work on Asia has a direct Euro-America connection, as for example when we conduct trilateral discussions with the EU, China, and the U.S. on issues. And it’s clear that almost everything that happens in Asia has implications, direct or indirect, for Europe and the United States. We’ve done work on U.S.-China security cooperation, we’ve done work on cross-Straits relationships – across the Taiwan Strait – and we’ve done work on energy cooperation between the U.S., China, and India.

Finally, one of our big projects for the last two years has been a study of what it will take to normalize U.S. relations with North Korea. We issued a major report on this last year and have just finished an interim report after discussing our findings with the South Koreans. Later this year we will be taking the report on the road to other countries of the Six-Party process after which we’ll make some recommendations about a regional security structure. Many of our board members, including those serving on the Asia Committee have been critical to our efforts in this area. I want to thank Julia Chang-Bloch, General John Fu, and Harry Harding, who are here today for their help in this work. And now, here to introduce Ambassador Hill, is the chair of the Asia Committee of the Board and an executive committee member of the Atlantic Council, Frank Kramer. Frank has been an extraordinary public servant over the years. He was the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs from 1996 to 2001 where he was dealing with, among other issues, Korean and Asian matters. He’s also been Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and NATO affairs. So with that Frank, let me hand it to you. Thank you very much.

Frank Kramer: Thanks, Fred. We’re all here to listen, not to me, but to Chris Hill. Chris is one of the extraordinary Ambassadors for the United States, one of the extraordinary diplomats. He and I first met when he was the Ambassador in Macedonia. He then went on to [be] the [U.S.] Ambassador in Poland. He was Ambassador to South Korea; he was the Special Envoy for Kosovo; and obviously now he’s the Assistant Secretary for East Asia and Pacific Affairs and he heads the team of the Six-Party talks on the North Korea nuclear issue.

He’s spent enormous amounts of time on this issue and he’s probably been the person who is most associated with the fact that the talks have gone forward. He’s been patient, he’s been diplomatic, and he’s been tough. And he has actually caused a certain amount of things to happen. The nuclear facility of Yongbyon has largely shut down. We have had fuel oil given to the North Koreans, and there are a number of steps forward, although I think many people would say there’ve been a number of steps backward. Two forward, one back, some people say; [others say] one forward, two back. And I think that’s what he’ll be talking about today. As to where we really go for the next six months, for the next year, how do we actually come to a conclusion? We have a new government in South Korea. Will that make a difference? We will have a new government in the United States. What impact will our elections have? What impact will the government have? These are all open questions. Chris is about as knowledgeable about this set of issues as anyone in the world.

This is an extraordinarily capable audience I can see by looking around. There are a whole variety of people. There are some long-term players on the nuclear issue and many, many diplomats, military and otherwise.

So, I’m going to turn it over to Chris. He will speak and then he will take questions and answers. And he’ll deal with the issues of the declaration, which you all know, complete declaration. I’m sure he’ll deal with the issue of ‘What about actual destruction?’ And he might even deal with the issue of Damascus, ‘What about the Syrian side of the problem?’ With that, let me turn it over to Chris, and let’s hear what you have to say.

Ambassador Christopher Hill: Thank you very much, Frank. It’s a great pleasure to be here. One issue I will not deal with is, I noticed on CNN this morning, I hadn’t seen a picture of myself from some ten years ago on CNN, but there I was getting off an airplane in Tuzla, and I know the question was ‘Was I concerned about sniper fire?’ (laughter) All I can remember is getting off that plane and making a bee-line for the car because, you know, when you get off of a plane with a VIP you stand to be left behind if you don’t get in that car in a hurry. So I crouched down and ran for the car.

But let me just say, it is a great pleasure to be here. Being here at the Atlantic Council brings back a lot of great memories, I must say. One, of course, is being with Fred Kempe back in Poland in the mid-‘80s. We had a softball team at the American Embassy and we used to play the Marines and we were pretty unsuccessful at it. But one time I brought this ringer along, this reporter for the Wall Street Journal, who I assured our Marines had never played baseball before. I think we won 16 to 2 thanks to four grand slams by Fred. So Fred, great to see you again. It’s the first day of baseball season . . . I don’t know what you’re doing here! Anyway.

I suppose it would seem in years past that the Atlantic Council was the wrong place to talk about Korea and Northeast Asia security, but I think in recent years especially, thanks to the work of Frank Kramer, but also Joe Snyder, who I know from previous assignments back when I was in Korea in the mid ‘80s. That I think the Atlantic Council is very much engaged on these security issues in Asia and I think it’s very good news for Asia that the Atlantic Council is so engaged on it.

When I look at the situation that we’re dealing with, these negotiations with North Korea, and in our times I describe myself as “the Assistant Secretary for North Korea” because it does take up an inordinate amount of time. I do try to bear in mind every single day what we’re really trying to do in those negotiations. And what we’re trying to do is the sort of thing the Atlantic Council has helped to do over the decades. Which is to form a greater sense of community in the North Atlantic and what we’re trying to do in Northeast Asia is to do precisely that.

Of course, we’re doing it through a rather intricate and difficult problem, that is, North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, which, by the way, have been — they’ve had nuclear ambitions for as long as the Atlantic Council has been around. Those nuclear ambitions began sometime in the 1960s. They didn’t just begin with their sense of upset and being labeled a member of the Axis of Evil, frankly speaking. They were well at it long before they felt bad listening to a speech. So I think we approach the task with the understanding that we’ve got to get through denuclearization. But as we work on denuclearization we can already see the beginnings of a sense, a greater sense I should say, of community in Northeast Asia.

We have a process called the Six-Party Talks. Everyone hates the word process. So do I. And a lot of people hate the word talks and so do I. But in putting together these six countries, very heterogeneous countries, very different countries, countries that look at this issue in North Korea from very different vantage points, very different perspectives, we can see that as we work on the issue we’re beginning to form a greater sense of community. Even through the most difficult times of the Japan-China relationship a couple of years ago, you could see that Japan and China were able to work together at the Diaoyutai guest house. At times it seems like a prison because you get stuck there for a long time, but it’s actually a very nice place to sit and have these multilateral meetings. But we were able to see how Japan and China were able to work together through difficult times, how Japan and South Korea were able to work together. You could see how the South Koreans in some respects were sort of still introducing themselves to the Chinese, and working well together. And it wasn’t so long ago. Indeed it was in the 1980’s when there were no relations between China and South Korea, so you can see that that relationship is also functioning.

So what we’re hoping to do as we go forward is not only solve the conundrum of North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, but also form the sense of community and perhaps make it something lasting on the Northeast Asian landscape and seascape. That is, make these countries feel comfortable sitting together, working out things, and talking to each other but also at some point in the future maybe having some dispute mechanism — dispute resolution mechanism — and otherwise having a sense that they are all together in this region.

So as we face the various problems posed by not only North Korea’s nuclear ambitions but also North Korea’s extreme self isolation, that has caused this dark hole in the middle of this region, as we deal with that problem everyday we realize that we are addressing another problem, which is getting these countries together into sharing a sense of community. So I think that is going forward, but obviously we’re not going to get there unless we can get through the North Korean nuclear issue. So let me briefly describe where we are and where we need to be.

Frank mentioned that we’d gotten the reactor, the nuclear facility at Yongbyon shut down, and that’s — or I think Frank said largely shut down — actually that’s completely shut down. What we also have been able to do through this painstaking step by step process is not only to get it completely shut down, but also disabled. The point about disabling is not so much to buy time during which it would take the North Koreans money and effort to get the reactor going again. The idea of disabling it is to make it clear to the North Koreans that this is a one-way ticket toward eventual abandonment. So as we set out on the Six-Party Talks to try to create a sort of step by step process toward denuclearization, first we set out a statement of principles, and then we came back and tried to implement each principle. And one of the most important principles, indeed I think the guiding principle if you will, is that we would have North Korea completely denuclearize, that is, abandon all their nuclear programs and all their nuclear weapons. And so obviously they didn’t want to do that overnight, so we began on a step-by-step implementation. It took a while; there were a lot of problems that came up in the meantime, which I’m still in therapy over some of those problems and I certainly don’t want to traumatize you with them, but what we managed to do is to, last July, to turn the switch, shut it off. Which is something that was done in the 90’s, but then I think importantly we got them to begin the disabling process. Now I think it was encouraging to us as we got into disabling that the North Koreans said, ‘we would like the American’s to disable’. We appreciated being asked and indeed I think it is in everyone’s interest that there are American technicians, as there are as I speak to you tonight, working and living in Yongbyon. But what we also wanted to do is make sure that the disabling process was pursuant to the six party process. Because, again, we want to continue to form this sense of community. We don’t want to turn this process into a bilateral process. And so we worked it out with the six parties that the disabling would be conducted by the U.S. at the behest of the six parties. So since the fall we have had teams there taking a series of measures, there are eleven total measures which are aimed at the disabling of the facility, leading to the eventual dismantling and abandonment of the facility.

I must say this process is going well. People point out that some of these disabling measures can be redone and it’s true. But what I think is important about it is that the North Korean technicians, with whom our people are working with on a daily basis, have understood this is a one-way ticket, that they’re not planning to restart this thing. Indeed, when you look at the comparison of how they conducted the freeze or the shutdown of the facilities in the 1990’s with how they’ve handled this there is a big difference and I would say the most important for us is the fact that there’s no maintenance going on in the facility today. That is, when they cut out the reverse cooling loop, it has sat, this huge hunk of metal, has sat on the ground through the winter months with no effort to, you know, make it so that it could somehow be reattached. Indeed it would take quite an effort to reverse the reverse cooling pipe. So we, by working there, by being there everyday, have gained the sense that the North Koreans really are committed to the abandonment of this facility. So much so that some of the critics of the whole process began by saying ‘Well they could undo these activities in a matter of months’ and as we looked through and as we summed up the eleven activities we could see that we were essentially were somehow buying some twelve, thirteen months of disabling. But as the months have gone by, it’s pretty clear that that’s not going to happen and now the critics I’ve heard say that actually the North Koreans want to give up on Yongbyon and they never intended to keep it and that’s why they’ve allowed it to be disabled. I would say, by the way, to that second point, to the question to how long could North Korea have kept Yongbyon going if they wanted to. And I think the same is for a Cuban taxi driver, driving a 1956 Chevy: as long as he wants. So I think the North Koreans could have kept Yongbyon going and if you look at the actual time that its run compared to any sort of commercial power plant you can see that there are many days, years left on that reactor. So they have made the decision to shut down that facility and I think that we can feel positive about that.

The second element though, that we needed from them in this phase has proven to be a much more problematic element. And that is the question of them providing us a complete and correct — it’s always easier to remember if you can alliterate it — a complete and correct declaration of all of their nuclear programs. Every year this problem has proven more difficult than many people anticipated. This is divided into three main areas.

First of all, of course is the issue of nuclear materials. Here we have very good reason to believe when they give the declaration we will get a complete picture of how much actual plutonium they have produced from the actual facility. What’s important is, when you produce plutonium, from a facility like that, there are means, there are ways, to verify the exact amount of plutonium, and in the case of separated plutonium you want to be pretty exact in what you’ve got.

The second area is the question of facilities. We know what their nuclear programs or what their nuclear facilities are and what we need from the North Koreans to do is to list those facilities and to make sure they give us a complete list. Here too we don’t anticipate a serious problem in terms of what the facilities are going to be.

But the third element, I think has proven to be much more problematic, that is, nuclear programs. To be sure the North Koreans are prepared to list the plutonium program. But we know — we know from as early as 2001-2002 — we know that they had aspirations to have a uranium enrichment facility, uranium enrichment program. We know they made certain purchases that were entirely consistent with these aspirations. We need to know about what that is. If it’s continuing, we need to have it stopped. If it’s already stopped, we need to know when it stopped and what the situation was. So that’s one problem that we’ve had.

The second is the fact that we know, unfortunately, that North Korea has had some nuclear cooperation with abroad. Some proliferation issues, I think any reader of the popular press knows what country I’m talking about but there’s an issue where also we need to know, very clearly from the North Koreans, what happened and if it’s stopped, as they say it has, when did it stop, how did it stop?. And if it’s not going to continue, as they say its not, we need to have means to verify and to monitor that indeed there is no such program now or in the future. So as we’ve worked with the North Koreans, it has not been easy. The North Koreans have said ‘we don’t have anything now and we won’t have anything in the future, why are you dwelling on the past? After all, two out of three’s not bad…’ We’ve made the point that we need clarity as to what’s happened, we’re not looking to cause problems, we’re not looking to create a situation where somehow we would pull out of this, on the contrary we need clarity so that somehow we can pull forward. And we are way into overtime at this point. We have expected this phase of the denuclearization to have been completed at the end of December and here it is, already the end of March and it’s still not completed. And that has prompted some people to say ‘they have not fulfilled their part of the bargain, the United States should pull out of the Six-Party Talks. I mean, after all the North Koreans were supposed to provide a complete and correct declaration by December 31^st, it hasn’t happened, what are we doing still talking about this?

So I think there’s a question I think where you have to look very specifically at what your interests are. Are your interests served by exerting your right to pull out? After all we can pull out of this process any time we want. But, or do you look at your interests and conclude that your interests are better served by staying in it? Clearly from our vantage point our interests are better served by staying in the process. So I think, we have continued to work with the North Koreans, we have worked with them multilaterally through the six party process and bilaterally. By the way, I think a six party process, a multilateral process has never meant that you can’t have bilateral contacts. It’s a pretty broad, pretty solid platform to have a lot of different processes. We have three way talks, we have two way talks, we do all kinds of talks. So I mean, this is a multilateral process in which you can very easily imbed bilateral process and bilateral talks and we continue to work with the North Koreans on this.

Frankly, we went to Geneva last week or two weeks ago for what we thought would be talks that would lead to a resolution of this declaration issue. We had some very good discussions. But at this point we do not yet have a complete and correct declaration from the North Koreans. We’ve continued to have talks through the New York Channel. Which is the means by which we communicate to the DPRK government, to the North Korean government. And again, some of those discussions, some of those specific things that we’ve been talking about I think could lead to a resolution of this. It’s my view, and this is a, really a guess, if the six party talks fail, it will not be for lack of a declaration. We will get through this phase. The problem I think will come to the next phase. And the next phase I think is a far more crucial phase because if we have a declaration, if we are able to rule out uranium enrichment as a continuing problem, as it was a problem. If we are able to rule out that it is an issue that is producing fissile material. If we are able to ensure that there is no proliferation or not further proliferation concerns, we will be down to the problem of getting North Korea to abandon the fissile material that it has already produce.

Now we will have a precise figure for that, a precise figure for how much plutonium they have produced but in this third phase we will need them to turn over to the international community that fissile material and that in effect, become a non-nuclear country. This will be a big challenge. As we get ready for this third phase, we look at some of the things that we might put on the table. For example, we believe we can put on the table an offer of the establishment of diplomatic relations with North Korea and normalization. We would do that in the context of a denuclearized North Korea. That is, they denuclearize, we will establish full relations with North Korea. Does that mean we don’t have any more problems with North Korea? Of course not. We have a lot of issues with North Korea, but we will address those issues as we do with many countries that we have diplomatic relations. We will talk about human rights as we do with many countries with whom we have diplomatic relations. We might set up a human rights dialogue as we do, we have many other issues that I think we will need to address. We will do that in the context of having relations with a country that we, in addition to having relations, we will continue to have some problems and we will deal with those through diplomatic means. So that’s one thing we can put on the table.

Another thing we can put on the table is the fact that in Korea, in the Korean Peninsula we have had an armistice, which is a, since 1953, it’s kind of an elaborate cease-fire, we’re prepared to move that armistice to a peace treaty. And it’s a peace treaty that would give to North Korea a southern border and South Korea a northern border. Obviously North Korea and South Korea would be primary players in this but I think other players, namely the U.S. and China would have to play an important role in this, but we’re prepared sit down and see if we can work out a peace treaty with the understanding that there are a lot of complexities in this but we’re prepared to do it.

Thirdly, we’d be prepared to assist with not only bilateral assistance trade packages but also assist in getting North Korea better access to the international financial institutions. This is not entirely within the, it’s certainly not something the five parties can do on their own. Obviously North Korea will have to live up to certain standards. There are statistics in various things that they would have to provide if they’re ever going to have membership in some of these organizations. But we’re prepared to work with them and see if that could be accomplished and together also provide bilateral aid packages.

Fourthly, we would be prepared once they have denuclearized, once they are backed in the non-proliferation treaty and establish a record of non proliferation, we would be prepared to discuss with them their desire for a civil nuclear program. North Korea does not have a lot of fossil fuels at its command. Energy is a huge problem for North Korea, and we would be prepared, once they are out of the nuclear business and into the NPT and have established a record of no-proliferation, we would be prepared to talk to them about aspirations for a civil nuclear program. We are also prepared to work with them on retraining opportunities for their scientists. North Korea has many scientists who have been engaged in these nuclear programs over the years. We’d be prepared to sit down and see what can be done in terms of getting them out of these fields and into other scientific fields.

Finally, and this goes back to the first point I started with, we’re prepared to create a Northeast Asia peace and security mechanism, whether it looks like the OSCE, whether it looks like some other institution from some other part of the world, will depend on the participants, I would say. We at this point cannot say with any precision what it would look like, but North Korea could be one of the founding members of this Northeast Asia peace and security mechanism. So all of these elements would go on the table. And what North Korea needs to decide is does it want to keep its aspirations for nuclear weapons in lieu of all these other elements. So, again, if we thought North Korea was simply prepared to fall out of bed one day and get rid of their nuclear programs, we would have done it one day and I would be on to other things, but alas, they are the kind of people who move step by step, and we believe this is the best way to do this. We do feel it is an important accomplishment that not only is the nuclear facility shut down, but it is disabled. This means that, if we can get it down to that amount of plutonium, we know that it is that amount of plutonium. That is, the plutonium will not be increasing every month. We think that is an important accomplishment and an accomplishment worth keeping us in the game to continue on this. I know there’s a lot of questions about can we get through this ambitious third phase, during the life of the Bush Administration, which has some 300 days to go. And again, I think this is something North Koreans are going to have to answer. They have said on a number of occasions that they would like to reach this deal with the Bush Administration. They’ve said it to us on a couple of occasions. The question is whether they’re willing to follow through. North Korea is a country that has a, how to put it, vertically oriented governing structure to be sure, but that —this is on live TV so I have to be a little diplomatic about that — but at the same time, it is a place with politics. And so I think it is fair to say that there are people in North Korea who are really not with the program here. Who’d really rather continue to be producing this plutonium for whatever reason. And so I think we’re going to have to understand that they’re just not going to wake up one day and everything’s going to be O.K.

Finally, let me just say that as we have gone forward, we have done this in an interagency process to be sure. The State Department plays a big role, but we have worked with other agencies as well. I would say the teamwork has been pretty good. It’s not to say that we don’t have people who are less enthused about this than others but I think we have been able to work together. I’m very proud of the foreign service officers who have worked with me through this. But we have been able to get together a very good team. And I think overall our countries relationships with that part of the world have been helped by our efforts in this regard. I think when you work in Asia, you want to show people in Asia that you’re sincere about what you’re doing. I think we’ve managed to do that. I think you want to show people in Asia that you’re willing to work hard. I like to think the team we have together has indeed shown that we can work hard. And I think when you work in Asia, although I wouldn’t limit this to Asia, when you work anywhere, you want to be respectful of your interlocutors and you want to show an understanding that they come from different experiences, different national experiences than you do, that they have a different history than you. That you’re willing to listen at least 50% of the time and that you’re willing to understand where they’re coming from and see if we can work things out together. And I think we’ve succeeded in doing that. So speaking of not speaking more than 50% of the time, maybe this is a good time to go to questions. Thank you.

Applause.