Christopher Hill Quotations

We are looking forward to getting things going as scheduled, ... What we really have to do is ... identify the way forward and see how the principles will actually work in practice.

Whether we have a draft that everyone agrees on, or whether it's decided that there should be a recess of some kind, we don't know yet,

Whether this agreement helps solve this will depend in large measure on what we do in the days and weeks that follow.

We're going to discuss a way forward on the six-party talks. Obviously what we need is for all six parties to agree to a date.

We've used the one month very productively in Washington, we're ready to sit down and negotiate and try to finish this thing.

We'll see where we are at the end of the day.

We'll see if we can be closer to the DPRK.

We are going to have to pick up the pace if we are going to get there,

We are not aware of whether at the end we will have an agreement or disagreement. We still don't know,

We decided the best thing to do is to put the talks into recess.

We decided it was time to end it and go to recess, with the idea that they can go back and think about what they've been told, which is, they're not going to get a light-water reactor,

We've been in touch with Governor Richardson and we look forward to being in touch with him again on his return.

We have a pretty good deal on the table.

We're confident that the Indonesian military is continuing on its reform path and we want to assist in this process.

Life is too short to overreact to every statement coming out of Pyongyang. It obviously was not a helpful statement. But it was not unexpected, either.

Life is too short to overreact to every statement coming out of Pyongyang, ... It obviously was not a helpful statement. But it was not unexpected, either.

Several delegations, including ours, had some difficulties with it, ... But we're trying to work with it, to do something with it.

Several delegations, including ours, had some difficulties with it,

Several delegations, including ours, had difficulties with it,

So for every four weeks they delay, they lose 80 million dollars, and you can do the math from here.

So if this is about energy, we've got a very good proposal for that. This would really meet their capacity needs. We don't see any reason to go and develop additional capacity, especially through such very difficult and extremely expensive projects as nuclear energy.

So I haven't seen any of the parties coming forward to say that they are prepared to fund such a thing, so we are talking about a theoretical issue at this period.

Neither the United States nor any other participants in the six-party process is prepared to fund a light-water reactor,

One should not assume that the outstanding problems all have to do with the issue of so-called peaceful use or civilian use.

Of course not everyone agrees with this... but I can assure you that the US government believes this is the right approach and this is what we are doing.

None of these issues is agreed unless all of them are agreed. We have a lot of issues in the air that we need to hold together.

No one's building a light water reactor. These are rather expensive things, I mean we're talking talking billions of dollars. So that's not happening,

Nuclear weapons, nuclear programs are not something that one should leave in an ambiguous state.

If we're not going to make progress, we're not going to be here,

If we're not going to be here ... we'll have to talk about what possible way we might wind this up,

If we can get an agreement at the end of August, quickly thereafter in September we will move to the next stage ...the so-called fifth round of the six-party talks we would anticipate starting at very early fall.

I don't have any plans yet and I am obviously going to be very focused in the coming weeks of consulting with other partners and that could well include DPRK but I haven't made any travel plans yet.

I don't have any plan because meetings should have a purpose and we've already discussed our positions. So I'm not sure of the purpose to have a meeting, besides (that) I'm in Tokyo.

I don't have any further six-party meetings planned, to my knowledge.

I don't detect among any of the parties a willingness to construct a light water reactor which will be a very expensive, very long-term type of project,

but we have some ideas cooking; we're working on it. We're very concerned about the violence. It's quite widespread.

But we are trying to work with it, and we are really trying to reach something with it. We are setting principles, but being in general principles doesn't mean you create ambiguities and lead the way to confusion and lead the way to problems in the future.

But the question is what the DPRK has done in that one month,

But at this moment I don't know where those (discussions) would lead.

Based on what the negotiators were telling us, it's a finite number of issues that separate us, ... It sounded a little worse right as the negotiations closed because they began to put things on the table which frankly had been resolved, and I'm not too concerned about those things.

China has become one of the largest traders and investors with many Asian countries.

I have made it very clear and I think the other delegations have made it clear that nobody is prepared to fund the light water reactors and that they should rather focus on the elements that are on the table...

I have made it very clear, and I think the other delegations have made it clear, although I'll let them speak for themselves, that nobody is prepared to fund the light water reactor, and they should rather focus on the elements that are on the table and understand that those elements would be very beneficial.

I have just told the North Koreans ... (they) raised the idea (of) what can be done about putting the interim measure, a freeze measure. I told them I am not interested.

I can't say really that there has been progress,

I can't say at this point how it's going to end up, ... difficult but not insurmountable.

get parties together to push the process forward.

For us, the fundamental question is whether the DPRK (North Korea) is prepared to abandon its nuclear programs. And as you know its nuclear programs are involved with the production of materials for nuclear weapons,

There is a strong sense among all six delegations that we really want to make progress,

The purpose of these three weeks is to be in touch and be ready, because I would like this to be shorter than 13 days so we can get on to the main event, which is negotiations,

The purpose of the meeting was to make sure, make absolutely sure, that we understood what their position is and what our position is, ... In that regard, I thought it was a very, very good meeting.

We're operating from a piece of paper now, and we'll see what we can do.

What we have made clear is that we will have a discussion on the issue of peaceful nuclear energy, and in particular the subject of the provision of a light water reactor, but only at an appropriate time.

going to decide on their own. They're not going to listen to pressure from me.

We look forward to seeing the talks move on in this difficult stage.

has some demands and the question is whether anybody accepts those demands.

The only thing North Korea is interested in discussing is a light-water reactor. No country is going to provide North Korea with a light-water reactor. So we have reached a bit of a standoff.

I suspect they (KLA) will act on their interest.

I think it is a good deal for everybody, especially for the DPRK, which does have a long road to travel,

I think it is a good deal for everybody, especially for the DPRK,

I think it's fair to say we have a rather major disagreement on this point.

It is a big decision for them (North Korea), a big undertaking, but it's absolutely the right decision for them. The security, the success, the prosperity of the DPRK does not depend on nuclear weapons. In fact, it depends on relations with others. So this is a moment which I think will be a very important moment in their history, to make this turn, and to turn away from these sorts of weapons and toward interactions with their neighbors and with other countries in the world.

It is a big decision for them but is absolutely the right decision for them.

It is a good agreement for all of us.

I think the Chinese draft is an excellent basis for reaching an agreement.

I think the DPRK has a much more deliberately slower process of how to handle denuclearization.

I think we have very strong arguments on our side. I think, consistent with our arguments and consistent with our interests, we can come up with something.

It gives no one any pleasure that the DPRK is literally one of the darkest countries in the world,

I think that the DPRK (North Korea) needs to understand that we need to move swiftly on denuclearization and the fact that denuclearization is the first step in the agreement.

I think they know our position and I guess we know their position because I don't think anything has changed.

I think they should focus on what is on the table,

I think the most important is to stick to the fourth draft, try to make minimum changes and not to engage major surgery to the draft,

KPMG has been going over our books for a couple of months getting ready to release the 2005 quarterly results and they came across this. They checked it with Deloitte, and Deloitte has agreed with KPMG's methodology.

Our view is that stopping their programs is simply something they have to do.

Our position has been very clear on this. North Korea needs to get out of the nuclear business.

Patience has been exhausted and we need to see a pullback of the (Serbian) security forces, whose only purpose at this point that we can see is to be in opposition to the general public there.

is to see how we can take an agreement in principle and begin to see how an agreement in principle can be put into practice.

I'm sure Ambassador Han deeply regrets that he lost his temper, because the things he said are inexcusable,

The appropriate time will only come when the DPRK has promptly eliminated all nuclear weapons and all nuclear programs, and this has been verified to the satisfaction of all parties by credible international means.

We have options for dealing with this, but there is one option we do not have, and that is the option of simply walking away.

We have taken this further than we've ever had in the past, than we've gone in the past, and so we'd like to see if we can get to an agreement. And, we're not there yet, frankly speaking. We're definitely not there. We do have substantial differences, but I think no one is quite ready to say we cannot get there, so I think there is a desire to keep on going.

We don't feel the need to spend 13 full days here, ... I think we can make progress more quickly than that.

Yesterday was a long day, ... Let's see if we can do a little better today.

we really need clarity on the principles, it is precisely the clarity that we are seeking. That is so necessary.

We have a great political will to solve this problem,

We have a good idea of what their position is. Their position does seem to be wrong.

We can't just sit there stalemated session after stalemated session.

You know how you build up trust? You live up to the agreement. You come up with solid implementing schemes that enable you to move forward and show that what you've agreed to do in the agreement, you're actually doing and that's the best way to build up trust.

You know how you build up trust? You live up to the agreement ... You can build up trust through actions.

The problem is not yet solved but we hope it can be solved eventually through this agreement. We have to take the momentum of this agreement and see that it is implemented.

The problem is not we don't have talks, the problem is we need to have more action. The gap is between five of us and one of them.

The problem is you talk to one side and get one view and you talk to the other side and you get a view 180 degrees to the opposite.

We are hoping that if we can get through these principles, we can get going with an actual agreement in September, or the latest in October and see if we can finally put this terrible problem to bed,

Though we don't have any strong problems with the fourth draft, how the DPRK react to the fourth draft is something we have to see today.

We discussed some specific ideas about how we could make the process move ahead.

We had another long day. We made a little progress but I must say we didn't make enough progress.

We know we are ready to sit down and negotiate and try to finish this thing. But the question is what (North Korea) has done during that one month,

We're not expecting North Korea to become a Jeffersonian democracy, but we do expect them to sit down and talk to us about these issues, to talk to the international community.

We agreed that we need to step up the pace to move ahead, but we also agreed there continue to be a lot of differences between the Serbs and Albanians on this,

We are looking for full compliance. We'd like to see full compliance. I don't want to predict when exactly we'll see it, but we are working very hard to ensure it.