STATE DEPARTMENT BRIEFING WITH RICHARD BOUCHER,
DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
October 20, 2004
Excerpts
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BOUCHER: Deputy Secretary Armitage and Executive Vice Foreign Minister Di Vin Guo (ph) met yesterday. They reviewed a whole host of bilateral, regional and global issues similar to the issues that President Hu and President Bush addressed during their recent summit discussion in Santiago.
Obviously, our efforts in the six-party talks were a main topic of discussion. The deputy secretary thanked the Chinese for their efforts that they had made to end North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons and to move forward on the talks.
They also discussed Taiwan, they discussed questions of the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran, and a variety of other things that follow on the discussion from the presidents.
The secretary will have a meeting with Special Envoy and Vice Foreign Minister Di Vin Guo (ph) today. They'll, again, I think, go over the same topics similarly, but not necessarily in the same amount of detail as they did in the meeting with the deputy secretary yesterday.
QUESTION: Did you say they talked about Iran?
BOUCHER: Yes.
QUESTION: Is the U.S. asking China to curtail its oil purchases to Iran in an effort to perhaps, you know, use leverage with Iran on the nuclear issue?
BOUCHER: We don't really address it that way. We address it in terms of the responsibility of members of the board to ensure that Iran lives up to its understandings, to its commitments, both to the board and to -- to the IAEA and to the Europeans, and that Iran lives up to the requirements of the resolutions. That's a responsibility we think all members of the IAEA Board of Governors have.
QUESTION: But in terms of the kind of carrots and sticks that everyone has talked about, in terms of getting Iran to stop its nuclear program, I mean, obviously the U.S. looks to the Europeans to use its influence with Iran. But do you think that China has an influence?
BOUCHER: As we've said, we look to all the members of the Board of Governors to do what they can to see that Iran complies with its requirements.
QUESTION: If the meeting today produces anything definitive, for instance, on North Korea's willingness or unwillingness to meet, could someone let us know? I don't know when this meeting is, it's a late add-on.
BOUCHER: I think it's five minutes from now.
QUESTION: Well, then there's plenty of time for us to be informed whether they discussed a variety of bilateral issues. Hope you have some news for us.
BOUCHER: I don't expect any news out of it this afternoon in terms of overnight information since the meeting with Deputy Secretary Armitage. But if there is, you and your colleagues will be the first to know.
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QUESTION: Also affecting the U.N., the U.N. diplomats have said today they've lacked the authority to inspect further in Iran. They want to go to a military complex and they have been impeded in that effort.
BOUCHER: I've seen some of those reports. And I guess they are anonymous diplomats. I don't know who those might be.
But I think it frames the question in the wrong manner: that the issue here is Iran's commitments to transparency, Iran's commitments to openness, Iran's repeated statement that they're not seeking to develop nuclear weapons and how Iran can build confidence in the world that that is indeed sincere and true.
And one would think that if they really wanted to demonstrate to the world that they were not developing nuclear weapons, they would have absolutely no problem at all in allowing inspections of any facility, anywhere, on any suspicion, on any grounds, because they would have nothing to hide.
So once again, I think we find a, sort of, anomaly in Iran's behavior. They say they have nothing to hide. They say they are not developing nuclear weapons. And yet, as was documented by the director general in his reports, he has asked -- he says this in his November 15th report -- the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency says that the International Atomic Energy Agency has made repeated requests to visit a suspicious site at the military- controlled Parchin (ph) explosive testing facility and that those have not been answered by Iran.
So once again, I'd say that we -- as we've said in Vienna, during the recent discussions -- we expect Iran to provide prompt and unrestricted access to the International Atomic Energy Agency. And we think this is an issue where Iran needs to try to demonstrate the truth and sincerity of its statements.
QUESTION: Does that go for their failure to respond to an IAEA request for a list of military components that anonymous diplomats are saying in Vienna raises suspicions about what the Iranian military is up to?
QUESTION: You're talking about visiting sites. How about complying with requests for lists of...
BOUCHER: I think we would expect Iran to want to comply with all requests from the International Atomic Energy Agency; that if Iran truly has nothing to hide, one would expect them not only to comply, but to do so with gusto. I don't know how better to say it.
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