Rice says rejecting N.K. bilateral was wise

Posted on : 2008-03-29 12:32 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said rejecting pressure to talk bilaterally with North Korea on nuclear issues was one of the tough decisions for the George W. Bush administration.

In an interview published in the Friday edition of the Washington Times, she expressed U.S. concerns about North Korea's proliferation but said it can be better addressed through the existing multilateral forum.

"I do think that the first several years of the administration, the president was making some extremely difficult decisions, frankly, that... flew in the face of common wisdom of the foreign policy elite about a number of issues," said Rice.

Standing strongly against Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist groups, and supporting Israel were tough decisions that were paying off, the secretary said.

"We were under, if you remember, enormous pressure in 2002, 2003, 2004 -- 'You ought to talk to the North Koreans, you ought to have a bilateral dialogue with the North Koreans, the only way you are going to get the North Koreans to move is engagement,'" Rice said.

But the president rejected it and created the six-party talks involving South and North Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan, she noted.

"It has been difficult. It's sometimes slow. But we've already gotten the North Koreans to shut down their reactor, to disable it." "I would like to see us make progress on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," she said.

The six parties have a set of deals that lays out phased actions leading to dismantlement of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and programs. As mid-steps, North Korea is required to disable its key atomic facilities and submit a declaration that details its nuclear stockpile and any transfers to other countries.

The process has been snagged since Pyongyang missed a Dec. 31 deadline on the declaration.

Rice expressed concerns about the North's proliferation activities but said the six-party forum is the proper venue to address the question.

"Because whatever the North Korean proliferation issues are, we are going to address them better with China, South Korea, Japan and Russia at the table than the United States alone," she said.

WASHINGTON, March 28 (Yonhap)

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