*EPF303 01/15/2003
White House Report, Jan. 15: North Korea
(Press Secretary Ari Fleischer briefed) (690)

NORTH KOREA STATEMENT ON BUSH REMARKS NOT OFFICIAL RESPONSE, WHITE HOUSE SAYS

Asked if the January 15 statement by North Korea's Foreign Ministry is seen by the White House as an official response to the Bush remarks of January 14, Fleischer said:

"(I)t's always very hard to read North Korea. North Korea has a habit of saying very many inflammatory things, and then even their inflammatory things can sometimes contradict themselves. So can their private statements. We still await an official response from North Korea. And this is why North Korea has invited such concern around the world upon itself."

The North Korean statement, according to news reports, charged the U.S. with wanting to see North Korea disarmed and of tying aid to the disarming of North Korea.

Fleischer responded that "just as China has indicated, we, together, support a non-nuclearized Peninsula. That is not the same as disarmament. The president would like to see North Korea, which is one of the most militarized nations on earth, reduce its level of military threat and presence vis-a-vis South Korea. But that is a far cry from disarmament.

"No, I think the statement that this is about disarmament by the North Koreans is a red herring."

Asked why the United States does not formalize a nonaggression pact with North Korea, Fleischer said:

"The issue is not what is the United States going to do; the issue is, what is North Korea going to do. It is North Korea that stepped out of its commitments to the world and started to pursue the development of nuclear weapons in total violation of everything they agreed to.

"And when one sovereign nation gives its word and doesn't keep it, the answer is not that a different sovereign nation will, indeed, give it more. The answer is for the nation that broke its word to come back and keep its word. And in this case, North Korea needs to begin by dismantling its nuclear programs in a verifiable and irreversible way. That comes first."

President Bush, he added, addressed what would happen if North Korea took this action in his January 14 remarks.

Asked to comment on remarks by Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle that the Bush administration's policy on North Korea has been flip-flopping, Fleischer said "the administration rejects that criticism.

"It's been a very constant policy, where clearly it is North Korea has brought this on the world and the position of the United States is shared by our neighbors in the region. And it's unfortunate that somebody would make a statement that would imply that China, Japan, South Korea and Japan have flip-flopped. We stand together as a united group, a united group of nations dealing with the position that North Korea has put on itself."

TASK FORCE WORKS ON PREVENTING TERRORIST ATTACKS FROM SHOULDER-FIRED MISSILES

White House Press Secretary Fleischer confirmed a report in the January 15 Washington Post that a Bush administration inter-agency task force is considering a number of measures -- from changing take-off schedules to equipping planes with anti-missile technology -- to thwart terrorists from attempting to shoot down commercial airliners with shoulder-fired missiles.

"There are many different types of ways to provide increased protections to the traveling public from the remote threat of this possibility," he said. "And these are all being discussed by the FBI, by the Transportation Security Administration, the FAA, National Security Council, et cetera," Fleischer said.

Passenger planes are seen as vulnerable to portable missiles that could be launched from outside an airport's perimeter.

Two failed attempts in recent months to bring down planes with shoulder-fired missiles, one in Kenya and one in Saudi Arabia, have heightened concern. Last November, terrorists fired two SA-7 missiles that narrowly missed an Israeli passenger jet after it took off from Mombasa, Kenya.

The other incident was in Saudi Arabia last May, when an SA-7 missile was fired at a U.S. military jet, but missed its target.

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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