Bush said Friday that his initial letter, which was delivered by Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill to the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, on Dec. 5, achieved its purpose. "I got his attention with a letter and he can get my attention by fully disclosing his programs, including any plutonium he may have processed and converted some of that into whatever he's used it for. We just need to know," Bush told reporters in the Rose Garden after a cabinet meeting. "As well, he can get our attention by fully disclosing his proliferation activities." Christopher R. Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon.
Christopher R. Hill delivers Bush letter to the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il
North Korea replies to Bush with an offer and a condition
By Helene Cooper
Published: December 15, 2007
WASHINGTON: Responding to a recent letter from President George W. Bush, North Korea agreed on Friday to follow through on its pledge to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, provided the United States reciprocates by normalizing relations between the countries.
Bush said Friday that his initial letter, which was delivered by Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill to the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, on Dec. 5, achieved its purpose.
"I got his attention with a letter and he can get my attention by fully disclosing his programs, including any plutonium he may have processed and converted some of that into whatever he's used it for. We just need to know," Bush told reporters in the Rose Garden after a cabinet meeting. "As well, he can get our attention by fully disclosing his proliferation activities."
North Korea agreed in October to dismantle all of its nuclear facilities and to disclose all of its past and present nuclear programs by the end of the year in return for 950,000 metric tons of fuel oil or its equivalent in economic aid.
That agreement has come under fierce criticism from national security hawks, in part because it does not require North Korea to turn over its existing stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium and any nuclear warheads it may already have produced. But many foreign policy experts point to it as a rare diplomatic success for Bush in a period that has been dominated by frustration in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East.
"An important step is a full declaration of programs, materials that may have been developed to create weapons, as well as the proliferation activities of the regime," Bush said.
A White House official said that Kim's response was delivered to State Department officials through an intermediary, North Korea's representative to the United Nations. The official said that the reply contained a pledge that the North would follow through on its promise as long as the United States held to its end of the bargain.
The proliferation issue has taken on new importance after an Israeli strike in Syria in September, which administration and Israeli officials say was conducted against a nuclear-related facility near the Euphrates River that was supplied with material from North Korea. Administration officials want North Korea to disclose whatever help it may have given Syria, although they note that the help for Syria predated the North's agreement to dismantle its nuclear reactor and disclose its nuclear programs.
The exchange between Bush and Kim is a huge leap from the veritable cold war that prevailed throughout most of the Bush administration. In 2002, during a meeting with Republican senators, Bush compared Kim to a "spoiled child at a dinner table," according to news reports at the time.
