Excerpts from the 02 October Department of State Daily Press Briefing on the draft (took place before the approval) and details of the latest Six-Party Talks statement, WMD and nuclear proliferation concerns, engagement, etc. . Spokesman Sean McCormack is responding to questions:

QUESTION: Anything, sir, on the statement on the six-party talks? (Laughter.)

MR. MCCORMACK: Stole your thunder. (Laughter.)

[…]

We have conveyed to the Chinese Government our approval for the draft statement that all the parties had when they went back to their capitals. We studied it, talked about it, examined it, gave our approval to the Chinese. I can’t tell you what the status is of all the other countries, whether or not they have had — done their review and given a response to the Chinese. So in terms of the when and if they issue the statement and the contents of the statement, let me take a deep breath and we’ll wait for the Chinese to issue the statement.

QUESTION: Just a — I mean, a very general — what the statement is all about. Is it in relation to the timing in which –

MR. MCCORMACK: It addresses those issues that we were talking about, the second — implementing the second half of the February 13th agreement, very basically three components: disablement of the Yongbyon facility, a declaration by the North Koreans of their nuclear program and then what in return the other five parties would do for North Korea. That’s very generally it.

QUESTION: So were there any changes that you sought or you just approved — you just signed off on the whole thing as was brought back?

MR. MCCORMACK: I believe that we in the negotiating sessions that Chris had back in Beijing were happy with the outcome and that was verified by the fact that Chris was able to brief senior officials back here in Washington and they gave their approval to it.

QUESTION: So no changes, not even a comma? Everything is –

[…]

MR. MCCORMACK: — and I don’t know if she got out her Strunk and White and went through the statement. She may very well have. But, look, it was approved. I can’t tell you whether or not — whether or not there were any changes in it.

QUESTION: Can you just give us anything about why the envoys had to come back to the capitals to decide on something?

MR. MCCORMACK: It’s a significant document. And very oftentimes, you have a long document, a detailed document and there’s a lot of negotiation that went into it. Sometimes some of the capitals want to have an option to, in a considered way, take a look what it is the envoys have produced.

Yes.

QUESTION: Sean, when you say — sorry — that you don’t know when the Chinese might release it or what they’re going to do, was it not the understanding when they wrapped up things the other day on Sunday that they in turn, in 48 hours, there will be a decision, yes or no; because if it’s a yes then it will be released.

MR. MCCORMACK: Nicholas, I can’t tell you the status of when people are getting back to the Chinese, you know. I don’t think anybody’s going to call the whole thing off if somebody gets back to the Chinese at hour 50 or hour 60. It’s not the way it’s going to work. So breathe in with me, take a deep breath, and we’ll just wait for the document to come out and then at that point you can take a look and see exactly what it says. And that’s — I’m preempting all the other questions on what’s in it.

QUESTION: You don’t expect Chris to go back in the next week?

MR. MCCORMACK: I don’t know. He’s up in New York right now doing — performing his duties as the Assistant Secretary for East Asian Pacific Affairs as opposed to the Assistant Secretary for the Six-Party Talks…

[…]

QUESTION: Just one more, Sean. The North Koreans keep saying, including Kim Gye Gwan today, that the statement will contain a timeline for their being taken off the terrorist list. The Japanese came out and said it’s not true. So which is it, yes or no?

[…]

MR. MCCORMACK: …when the document comes out, you can see exactly what it says. How about that?

Rosen.

[…]

QUESTION: At the daily press briefing on September 26th — […] — the Deputy Spokesman was asked if the U.S. sanctions that were imposed on the Government of North Korea and on a Pyongyang-based company, citing proliferation of missile technology, should give rise to any concern about the Administration’s stated intention to remove North Korea from the Department’s list of nations that sponsor terrorism. The Deputy Spokesman told the questioner, “You’ve got a bit of apples and oranges issue here.” But then went on to say in the very same answer that the bottom line is that for North Korea to be removed from the terror list it has to address the questions that are out there, those questions for us principally through the six-party talks are about denuclearization. But the Deputy Spokesman added, denuclearization by definition includes dealing with WMD proliferation concerns as well.

My question to you is: Why should a question about missile proliferation and the potential de-listing of North Korea from that terrorism list be described as apples and oranges?

MR. MCCORMACK: (Laughter.) James, I’ll let you and Tom talk about this over lunch or dinner. I didn’t — I have to confess, I’ll confess to all up here.

QUESTION: Do you (inaudible) as apples and oranges?

MR. MCCORMACK: James, I didn’t read the transcript. So I’ll — I’m sure if you take a look at the entire exchange, that it’s quite clear from what Tom said to everybody else here what it is that he meant, so –

QUESTION: Well, maybe you can go about it this way, you know, is missile proliferation necessarily WMD proliferation? […] But are missiles in themselves — just in themselves, not with anything attached to them, that might explode or whatever — are those regarded as WMD? I don’t know.

MR. MCCORMACK: Technically not. They’re not. No. But very oftentimes, it’s the threat of the combined –

QUESTION: I know. I understand. I –

MR. MCCORMACK: — (inaudible) WMD married up with the missiles.

QUESTION: If you have someone who’s getting — I just want to understand this. If someone is — some entity is being penalized for missile proliferation, it doesn’t necessarily fall under the WMD category.

MR. MCCORMACK: It depends on the facts. I mean, they could be designated for both things at the same time. It would really depend on the specific circumstances. But strictly speaking, you have missiles, that is separate from WMD, but we usually — talk about them in the same breath.

QUESTION: And so these sanctions that were signed on the 18th and that appeared in the Federal Register. One final question, one follow-up. There are, as you know, those who have long expressed concern that the Bush Administration is pushing to negotiate a deal with a country that has a demonstrably poor record of faithful adherence to nuclear accords.

MR. MCCORMACK: Right.

QUESTION: And now these individuals can point to a State Department finding as recent as September 18th that North Korea is, while we have been negotiating with it, actively engaging in dangerous and illegal WMD proliferation. Why then should anyone believe that negotiating with the North Koreans at the present time is a smart thing to do? (emphasis added)

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, look, James there are people who don’t think that we should negotiate with North Korea at all; that we should have no contact with them; that we shouldn’t even try to have them negotiate away their nuclear weapons program. We don’t agree with those people. John Bolton is a proponent of that point of view. I wouldn’t mischaracterize his views, but I think that’s safe to say that’s his point of view.

We don’t agree. We don’t agree with that. We have learned the lessons of our experiences with the North Koreans over time, over the decades here, and we think that we have now the best possible opportunity to try to have a denuclearized Korean Peninsula and have a changed relationship, therefore, a changed behavior on the part of the North Korean Government, vis-à-vis the rest of the world.

We think that that’s — we think that that is an opportunity worth taking. And we have designed the negotiations such that we go step by step. Good faith actions met, in turn, by good faith. And that has been the underpinning for all of these negotiations. Now we are seeing the North Koreans shut down the Yongbyon facility. That’s positive, but that is not breaking new ground in terms of North Korean behavior. You can go back in history and thet’ve done that before. Disabling the Yongbyon facility and a full declaration of North Korea’s nuclear program, that’s new, that’s path breaking. And we’ll see between now and the end of the year if they can achieve that. And if the North Koreans meet the conditions that have been laid out for them by the other six parties, then they are going to receive some benefits for that change of behavior. But it’s only in reaction to that change of behavior.

And it’s also important to note that in the six-party talks, whenever North Korea makes a promise, makes a pledge, it’s making that pledge not just to the United States, it’s making it to the other four members of those six-party talks. And safe to say that those other countries — notably China — have much more leverage with North Korea than the United States does. So they’re making that promise and that pledge to those countries with whom they have the most to lose. So we think that the structure of these negotiations, whereby you have real leverage to try to get North Korea to change its behavior is the right way to go. We’ll see if it bears results. It warrants some initial results. We’ll see if we actually start to break some new ground in terms of changed North Korean behavior. But we couldn’t disagree more that it’s not worth taking that opportunity because the risks of doing nothing are far too great.

QUESTION: To extend my air time on BNET, what does it — what does it say about the faith of the North Koreans, good or bad, as we’re in this negotiation right now, that as recently as September 18 you have this finding by the State and Treasury Departments?

MR. MCCORMACK: You know, James, we will see, as the negotiations proceed and as North Korea makes progress or not in keeping its pledges. And then we’ll be able to make those judgments.

QUESTION: Hasn’t a determination been made by State and Treasury on the 18th of September?

MR. MCCORMACK: James, what you’re talking about are lagging indicators. And what we’re doing is taking a look forward. Whenever you have a designation it’s, by definition, looking backwards. And it is something — a lagging indicator, if you will. And we’ll see going forward what kind of changed behavior we have. This is not going to happen overnight. The North Koreans are not going to have a pristine record by the end of December, from our point of view or the point of view of any of our other colleagues in the six-party talks. Nobody — everybody’s going into this with their eyes wide open in terms of the history of North Korean behavior. These are hard, tough negotiations. And I can assure you that the President and Secretary Rice, every step along the way, are designing the negotiations and what it is that we would provide North Korea with an eye towards the fact that they need to perform on what it is that they have said they would do.

QUESTION: Last question with your and Elise’s forbearance, if I might. You mentioned John Bolton as the proponent of a view that there should be no negotiation with North Korea right now. […] To you knowledge is there anybody inside the Bush Administration who also is a proponent of that view?

MR. MCCORMACK: I don’t know. You know, you have sources within the Bush Administration, do a poll yourself.

QUESTION: You don’t know if there’s anyone in the Administration that holds that view?

MR. MCCORMACK: You know what, the voices that I listen to — the President and Secretary Rice, and they are fully behind the six-party mechanism. I don’t know what other noise there may be in the system. But for my money, those are the voices that matter.