*EPF112 10/20/2003
U.S. Exploring Multilateral Security Assurances for N. Korea
(Powell, Rice also discuss Iraq, APEC on Sunday talk shows) (870)

By Howard Cincotta
Washington File Special Correspondent

Washington -- The United States is exploring a number of different models for providing security assurances to North Korea within the framework of the six-party talks rather than negotiating a treaty or a non-aggression pact, Secretary of State Colin Powell said in a series of television news interviews in Bangkok on October 19.

"We believe that we could provide the kind of assurances that the North Koreans say they are looking for without getting it into the formal process of a treaty," Powell said on CBS's Face the Nation. "And we want it to be done in a way that involves all of the other parties in the region."

Powell stressed that the issue of North Korea's nuclear weapons program is not a bilateral issue with the United States, but an international one, especially for the other countries in the region.

In return for such a security agreement within the six-party framework, Powell said, the United States would expect North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program in a verifiable manner. North Korea, he observed on Face the Nation, "gains nothing from this nuclear weapons program. We will not be threatened by it or be made afraid as a result of this program, and it does nothing for them at a time when they are in such economic need and have such difficulties as feeding their own people."

On CNN, Powell said that President Bush stressed the importance of China's role as a facilitator of the six-party talks during his meeting with President Hu Jintao of China.

"The President is committed to a diplomatic solution, a political solution," Powell said, "and the presentation he made to President Hu Jintao of China today, said to the President of China, 'Please keep playing the essential role you had been playing in leading us along, serving as a convener of the six-party talks and participant in those six-party talks.'"

Speaking from Bangkok on ABC's This Week, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice stressed the importance of the six-party framework in achieving a meaningful, verifiable agreement.

"Obviously, bilateral arrangements with the North Koreans did not work in the past," she said. "They violated the Agreed Framework. They violated bilateral assurances and bilateral agreements that they had with the South Koreans about a non-nuclear Korean Peninsula. So we're not likely to go back down that road. But we will be more than willing to talk about how, within the six-party context, we can address the North Korean security concerns in concrete ways."

In Iraq, Powell warned that coalition forces are still working with "a dangerous environment." Nevertheless, he expressed confidence on Face the Nation that they would prevail, and that the security situation would improve. "They will be helped over time by the creation of a new Iraqi police force, a new Iraqi army that will increasingly take on these security responsibilities and relieve our troops of these responsibilities," he said.

Powell noted that the coalition has made significant progress in restoring Iraq's infrastructure and reopening schools.

"There is now life once again in the cities of Iraq, and there is stability in a number of parts of the country, even in the presence of the instability that we see in the central part, the Sunni Triangle, and some of the difficulties we're having in parts of the Shi'a community," he said on Face the Nation.

On Fox News Sunday, Powell defended the administration's policy in Iraq, noting that 32 nations have joined the coalition there. "Iraq will be a better country living in peace with its neighbors," Powell predicted. "No one will have to have any future debates about weapons of mass destruction because it will be a government elected by the people who have no such interest in threatening their neighbors or developing such weapons."

Powell denied that the intelligence used to justify the war had been exaggerated, adding that U.S. weapons inspector David Kay has already validated some of the information about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

On Face the Nation, Powell said that he regrets each and every casualty and loss of life in Iraq, adding that "not one of these casualties is a life lost in vain, or an injury sustained in vain. We are doing this for a better world, a better region, and I think history will be a good judge not only of our intentions, but our accomplishments."

Powell expressed the hope that the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit would address the issue of terrorism and its connection to economic issues. While APEC is primarily a trade and economic organization, he said, it must now extend its reach to address security issues posed by the threat of terrorism.

Speaking on CNN, Powell noted: "You can't have a thriving economy; you can't have tourism, a robust tourist industry if people are worried about terrorists. So security and a sound economy go together and that's what I think is important this APEC meeting."

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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