Congressional Record: June 4, 2003 (House)
Page H4968-H4971
RESULTS OF TRIP TO NORTH KOREA
Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. [...]
Mr. Speaker, the real and primary purpose of my special order tonight
was to focus on a trip that I just led, we got back yesterday, from
North Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Mr. Speaker, no one from America in an elected capacity had been to
Pyongyang, North Korea, for the past 6 years, and in fact the only
contact we have had with the leadership of DPRK has been through our
State Department diplomats. We had a team there almost a year ago, or
last fall, actually, and we had our Assistant Secretary of State,
Secretary Kelly, meet in Beijing to have further discussions with North
Korea.
About a year ago, Mr. Speaker, I decided it was important that the
Congress attempt to understand what was happening inside of DPRK,
because of the tensions building between North and South Korea. I
wanted to make sure we did not end up in another conflict. So I set out
to take a delegation of 13 of our colleagues into Pyongyang last May.
We sat in Beijing and we sat in Seoul for 4 days waiting for the
visas to be approved. They never came. The reason given by the North
Korean government was that President Bush had referred to North Korea
as a part of the axis of evil, and, therefore, they did not think it
right we should be allowed admittance to their country.
But, Mr. Speaker, I persevered, and throughout the last 12 months
traveled up to the UN on at least two occasions, met with the
Ambassador for the DPRK mission at the UN, Ambassador Han, the only
representative of North Korea allowed in America, and I talked to him
about taking a delegation in.
Every time I met with him, as I have done in all of my contacts, I
made sure I talked to the folks at the White House, the National
Security Council and the State Department, so I kept them informed.
I used seven or eight individuals and groups that have contacts
inside of North Korea to convey the message that it was more important
for us to bring in a delegation of non-diplomats. There was an added
sense of urgency because in the late summer-early fall our intelligence
community gave the evidence to the State Department that in fact North
Korea had an active nuclear weapons program under way, which was a
clear violation of the 1994 agreed upon framework that was negotiated
in the Clinton administration.
So, for all of those reasons I kept the pressure on to take a group
into Pyongyang to meet with the officials of that country, not as
diplomats, not as representatives of the President, not as
representatives of the State Department, but as elected officials from
our country, to put a face on the American people and to tell the
people of North Korea that none of us want war, none of us want
conflict.
Approximately 10 days ago, Mr. Speaker, at the 11th hour, after I had
planned a trip to go to Moscow and then on into North Korea, we were
initially told the visas were not coming forward. Then the day after we
canceled that trip I got a call from the New York embassy or New York
office of the mission at the United Nations and Ambassador Han said
Congressman Weldon, Pyongyang has invited you to bring your delegation
into my country.
Very quickly we reassembled a team, three Democrats and three
Republicans, and traveled to Pyongyang on a naval aircraft. The Navy
did a fantastic job in providing support to us. We left on a Wednesday
evening and flew all night. The trip took us about 30 hours, with the
fuel stops that we had to make in the C-9 we were traveling in, and we
arrived into Pyongyang, North Korea, from a stop in Japan, at
approximately 9:30 a.m. last Friday.
For 3 days, we were hosted by the leadership of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs of the DPRK regime.
Mr. Speaker, I would say at the outset that we let it be known going
in we were not going in to represent the President of the United
States, nor the State Department. We were not going in to do any
negotiations. We were simply going in to put a face on America so that
the leadership of DPRK that has been so outrageously nasty within their
country toward America and the American people should see who we are,
not as diplomats, but as ordinary people.
The three Democrats and the three Republicans who went to Pyongyang
made it be known that we were not going to negotiate because that is
not our position, and in fact we were going in supporting the position
of President Bush and Secretary Powell; that a multilateral approach to
dealing with North Korea in the end had to be the vehicle, the way to
get this issue of this nuclear threat under control.
Our goal was to put the human face on, and we did. In fact, during
the 3 days that we were in Pyongyang, North Korea, it was an
unbelievable experience. I had asked in advance, Mr. Speaker, to visit
10 sites so that we would not just be taken where they wanted us to go,
but rather we would pick the type of sites that we would like to see.
In fact, half of those sites they agreed to and we visited.
One was a school, a school with 1,800 children from the age of 3
years to 18 years. It was an impressive sight, a model school for the
country. But it gave us an understanding of the support of the DPRK
government to educate their children.
The second was the Pyongyang Computer Center, one of three buildings
in the downtown city area that are used to develop North Korea's
technology and information and the use of computers.
We had to visit a film studio because the leader of North Korea, Kim
Chong-Il, has a major interest in producing video productions, actually
movies. He does not import any from the West for his people because
society in North Korea is totally closed. So I thought it would be
relevant to visit what I had heard to be one of the largest studio
complexes outside of Hollywood and Orlando, Florida. We visited that
site where there are 1,500 employees.
Mr. Speaker, to say the least, it was unbelievable. We were driven
through the back lot. I have been through the back lot of Universal
Studios, and I can tell you, that this rivaled that back lot. There
were scenes for movies that could be shot about Japan, about China,
about Korea, about Europe, about the West. All of these sets were
established so that North Korea each year can produce between 20 and 25
feature lengths films that are shown in the movie houses of North
Korea, which are all oriented toward the propaganda message and the
message of the North Korean leadership. So we visited that facility.
We had a shopping visit to interact with the ordinary people that
were in the city. We visited restaurants.
Mr. Speaker, on the last day we were there, we were scheduled to meet
with the Minister of Trade, but I asked the delegation the night before
if they wanted to do that meeting, and they said not really. So I told
the representative who handles U.S. issues for the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs that we did not want to go to the meeting with the Minister of
Trade, but instead on Sunday morning we wanted to go to church.
They agreed. They picked us up at our hotel at 9:45 in the morning,
and six Members of Congress went to church in a Protestant church on a
hill in North Korea, in the middle of this closed society, where there
were no pictures of Kim Chong-Il or Kim Il-Song, his father, but rather
were crosses, and with 300 people we worshipped in a Protestant church,
much like churches all over America do every Sunday morning. So we had
a good glimpse of this closed society.
Let me say, Mr. Speaker, I have visited the Soviet Union when it was
communist many times and I visited China under its communist system.
North Korea makes those two societies in their worst days of communism
look like an open society. It is an absolutely closed society to the
outside world, no access to outside media, no access to newspapers,
totally closed. In fact, limitation on people traveling in is also
closed.
But, Mr. Speaker, we are in a tense situation right now, because
North Korea has admitted publicly in our meetings that we held that
they have nuclear weapons today. They admitted that they are
reprocessing the 8,000 nuclear rods from their nuclear power plants and
they admitted that that reprocessed nuclear weapons grade fuel will be
used to build more nuclear weapons.
Mr. Speaker, the fact is that if North Korea uses the fuel from those
8,000 rods, they will have the ability within a year to build four to
six additional nuclear weapons. That is unacceptable, Mr. Speaker, and
that is why we have to aggressively at this point in time move in to
find a common way to solve the nuclear crisis that exists between North
Korea and the rest of the world.
The thing I wanted to mention to our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, is
after meeting with the leadership, after meeting with the foreign
minister, the speaker of their parliament called the Supreme People's
Assembly and the vice foreign minister, I came away convinced that we
in fact can find a way to get the North Koreans to give up their
nuclear capability.
Tomorrow morning I will talk to Secretary Powell on the phone, and I
will relay to him the exact details of what I think could become the
basis for his experts and professionals to conduct negotiations within
the context that the President and the Secretary of State have defined
to allow us to move away from the brink of nuclear war.
Mr. Speaker, the alternative is unacceptable. The alternative would
be for North Korea to continue to develop nuclear weapons. If we try an
economic embargo, they would likely offer to sell their nuclear weapons
to other nations, rogue groups, terrorist organizations. That is
unacceptable.
Regime change by means of war I think is unacceptable, at least until
we make every possible effort to find a way to convince the North
Koreans, as President Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao have said,
to have them remove nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to include the trip report, and I would
like to thank our congressional delegation Members, the gentleman from
Texas (Mr. Ortiz), who was my co-chair; the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Reyes); the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel); the gentleman from
South Carolina (Mr. Wilson); the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller).
They were a dynamic team, and together we have now brought back to our
colleagues the knowledge and a fuller understanding of this nation that
has been so secretive.
But more importantly, we bring back to America the possibility that
we can resolve this nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula through
peaceful discussions and through peaceful resolution. Hopefully, Mr.
Speaker, under the leadership of our great President and our Secretary
of State and Condoleezza Rice, our security adviser, we will in fact
this year be able to solve this very difficult challenge in a peaceful
way.
The material referred to earlier is as follows:
U.S. CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION (CODEL) WELDON VISIT TO NORTH AND SOUTH
KOREA--DEMOCRATIC PEOPLES' REPUBLIC OF KOREA (DPRK) AND REPUBLIC OF
KOREA (ROK), MAY 30-JUNE 2, 2003
overview
North Korea DPRK
The delegation was the largest congressional delegation to
visit the DPRK and the first CODEL to visit the DPRK in five
years. The visit occurred during a period of escalating
tensions between the DPRK, the United States, and nations of
the region resulting from the DPRK October, 2002, admission
of its nuclear weapons-related uranium enrichment program.
Subsequent DPRK withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty (NPT); confirmation of its possession of nuclear
weapons; expelling of IAEA inspectors; declared intentions to
reprocess its spent fuel; continued sales of missiles and
technology to terrorist nations; and allegations of nation-
sponsored drug trafficking all served to further raise
tensions between the DPRK and the international community.
The delegation visit was the culmination of over a year-
long effort by Representative Weldon to gain entry into the
DPRK for the purpose of engaging senior DPRK officials in
informal discussions, free of the formality of traditional
posturing and imposed pressures of negotiation objectives, to
share mutual perspectives on the major political, military,
and economic issues.
The resulting visit achieved its purpose by providing the
Members an opportunity to engage senior DPRK officials
(attachment 2) in lengthy, candid, unstructured, and often
pointed, yet respectful, discussions, in several venues
covering the complete range of outstanding issues. While
discussions with senior DPRK officials included the
predictable hard line rhetoric associated with recent DPRK
public statements, balanced discussion took place in the
formal as well as more personal informal sessions. The
demonstrated goodwill and willingness to go beyond first
level posturing gave the delegation reason to believe that
there are options that should be considered to avoid conflict
and resolve critical outstanding issues in a way
satisfactory to both sides. There is unanimous agreement
within the delegation that a way must be found to initiate
discussions in an agreed framework at the earliest
possible opportunity. Concern exists that failure to
address these crictical issues in a timely manner could
result in the proliferation of nuclear weapons and/or
technology to terrorist organizations and States.
Repeated statements were made by the DPRK leadership that
their brief is that the Bush Administration seeks regime
change in North Korea, "The Bush Administration finds regime
change in different nations very attractive . . . and is
trying to have regime change, one by one. This kind of
conduct damages the U.S. image in the world and weakens the
leadership role of the U.S. This is the heart of the
question. If the U.S. would sign a non-aggression pact, we
would give up nuclear programs and weapons." The DPRK seeks
normalization of relations and non-interference with its
economic relations with South Korea and Japan. Chairman
Weldon indicated he did not believe regime change to be the
goal of the U.S.--and stated his position of not advocating
regime change. The issue of regime change is seen as the
determining factor in whether a peaceful resolution to the
current standoff is possible.
Chairman Weldon also stated his concern that the
establishment of a DPRK nuclear weapons program would lead to
similar programs in surrounding nations. He cited Hu-
Putin statements calling for a nuclear free Korean Peninsula.
The DPRK, Vice Minister Kim, acknowledged this as a valid
point, but indicated that the other nations can rely on the
U.S. "nuclear umbrella," while the DPRK has no such option.
A major issue often voiced by DPRK officials remains a
requirement on their part to achieve a satisfactory framework
for bilateral discussions because of their belief that
certain issues "are too serious" to be dealt with in an
multilateral framework. The delegation believes flexibility
exists within a multilateral framework to satisfy the DPRK
officials desires for bilateral discussions.
Requested visits by the delegation to the Pyongyang
Information (Computer) Center, a school for gifted students,
Kim Il Sung's birth place, the North Korean movie studio
production facilities, and a Christian church as well as
casual evening social events permitted the delegation to
interact with a wide variety of North Koreans and to travel
to several sections of the city.
Prior to departure, Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials
extended an open invitation to the delegation for a return
visit and further indicated a willingness to consider visits
to the Yong Byon nuclear facility.
Seoul, ROK
In Seoul, the delegation was hosted by President Roh for a
breakfast meeting, met with Foreign Minister Yoon, Members of
the National Assembly, Ambassador Hubbard, General LaPorte,
and other officials to discuss the meetings in the DPRK. The
ROK officials expressed their appreciation for the efforts of the
delegation and reinforced the need for dialogue with the
North.
Observations
Each of the senior DPRK officials with whom the delegation
met cited the importance of the visit, given the current
tense relationship between the DPRK and the U.S. They also
noted their understanding of the role of Congress and that
the delegation was not visiting to negotiate issues for the
United States, but to enhance mutual understanding between
the two nations.
In each of the meetings, Chairman Weldon cited the past and
continued importance of inter-parliamentary exchanges in
improving relationships with nations and improving the well-
being of the peoples once considered to be enemies of the
United States, including the People's Republic of China and
the U.S.S.R., and expressed his belief that this could be the
case with the DPRK once normalized relations could be
established. He also expressed his belief that no one in the
Congress wishes ill-will toward the North Korean people and
that no one wants another war.
Each of the senior DPRK officials noted the tense
international situation and sought to place the blame on the
U.S. "because the U.S. seeks to make us give up our military
forces which safeguard our political system." Each of the
leaders also cited their preference for the "Clinton
approach" in the bilateral relationship and took strong
exception to President Bush's inclusion of the DPRK as part
of the "Axis of Evil." They stated their belief that such a
characterization demonstrates that the U.S. is unwilling to
"accommodate with our country" and the U.S. seeks regime
change. "Further, the U.S. is enlisting other nations to
prepare a nuclear first strike--seeking to blackmail and
intimidate us . . . The U.S. does not want to coexist with us
. . . And not only does the Bush Administration not want to
coexist, but wishes to get rid of my nation with its nuclear
strength . . . We see the U.S. preparing for a military
strike . . . The U.S. must change its hostile policy."
Without necessarily supporting the Bush Administration
policies toward the DPRK, all members of the delegation
agreed with Representative Engel's point to DPRK officials,
that violations of the 1994 Agreed Framework by the DPRK were
the reason for the current tensions, not Bush Administration
policies.
The DPRK officials stated their belief that the situation
can only be resolved by acceptance of the current
leadership--coexistence--and dialogue. And in the meantime it
intends to continue to develop its "restraint capability"
(nuclear deterrent). "We have tried dialogue and have been
patient . . . Our willingness to meet in Beijing in April
shows our flexibility to allow the U.S. to save face, showing
our flexibility and sincerity to resolve the issues at any
cost . . . We have not had concrete results. The Bush
Administration has not responded to our request for bilateral
talks--they are more focused on our first giving up our
nuclear program . . . This causes us to believe that the Bush
Administration has not changed its policy about disarming my
nation . . . We want to conclude a non-aggression treaty
between the two countries and avoid a military strike on my
country."
DPRK officials explicitly reconfirmed their nation's
possession of nuclear weapons and repeated previous public
statements regarding the reprocessing of the 8,000 spent fuel
rods from the Yong Byon facility. They also indicated they
will use the reprocessed materials for making weapons. They
further indicated that the only option open to them, given
their inclusion in the "Axis of Evil" and U.S. refusal to
engage in bilateral discussions, "is to strengthen and
possess restraint (deterrent) capability and we are putting
that into action . . . I know some say we possess dirty
weapons. We want to deny they are dirty ones . . . I
apologize for being so frank, but I believe you have good
intentions and I want to be frank. We are not blackmailing or
intimidating the U.S. side. We are not in a position to
blackmail the U.S.--the only super power. Our purpose in
having a restraint (deterrent) is related to the war in Iraq.
This is also related to statements by the hawks within the
the U.S. Administration. Our lesson learned is that if we
don't have nuclear restraint (deterrent), we cannot defend
ourselves."
DPRK officials maintained that their nuclear program is
only for deterrence and not being pursued to seek economic
aid--that "we only wish to be left alone. The nuclear issue
is directly linked to the security of our nation . . . We
need frank exchange on nuclear policies." DPRK officials
indicated that economic sanctions would be viewed as a
proclamation of war.
Attachment 1
CODEL WELFON--Members of Congress: Curt Weldon (R-PA);
Solomon Ortiz (D-TX); Silvestre Reyes (D-TX); Joe Wilson (R-
SC); Jeff Miller (R-FL); Eliot Engel (D-NY).
Professional Staff: Doug Roach; Bob Lautrup.
State Department Interpreter: Tong Kim.
Navy Escorts: Commander Lorin Selby; Lt Commander/Dr. Erik
Sawyers; Lt Frank Cristinzio; Lt Tamara Mills.
Attachment 2
DPRK--PAEK, Nam Sun, Foreign Minister; KIM Gye Gwan, Vice
Minister, Ministry of Foreign Affairs; CHAI Tae Bok,
Chairman, Supreme People's Assembly (SPA); CHO, Seung Ju,
Director General, Bureau of U.S. Affairs, Ministry of Foreign
Affairs; RHEE Sang No, Director of External Affairs,
Presidium of SPA; PAK Myong Guk, Director of U.S. Affairs,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
ROK--ROH, Moo-Hyun, President; YOON, Foreign Minister; YOO,
Jay-Kun, Member, National Assembly; KIM Un-yong, Member,
National Assembly; LEE, Jae-joung, Member, National Assembly;
SONG, Young-gil, Member, National Assembly; LEE By-yang,
Member, National Assembly; PARK, Jin, Member, National
Assembly; KIM, Suh-woo, Chief of Staff to the Speaker,
National Assembly; SOHN, Jang-nai, former Ambassador to
Indonesia; Thomas C. Hubbard, U.S. Ambassador to ROK; General
Leon LaPorte, Commander, USFK.
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