Ambassador Hill, we are pleased to welcome you, one of our nation’s most distinguished diplomats, to our Committee. 

We look forward to hearing a detailed account of the recent negotiations at the Six-Party Talks in Beijing which produced the February 13th agreement.

We all share a desire for a comprehensive and verifiable solution that will leave the Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons.

With roughly thirty thousand U.S. military personnel still stationed in South Korea, that country’s security, and that of the region as a whole, is vital to U.S. national interests.

However, I and other Members have a number of concerns regarding this agreement.

Several of its provisions, including:

• the shutting down and sealing of the Yongbyon nuclear reactor,
• the conditions and limitations regarding the return of IAEA personnel for monitoring, and
• the provision of the equivalent of 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil,
  are echoes of the 1994 agreement signed by the Clinton Administration.

In that agreement, North Korea pledged to freeze and eventually dismantle its nuclear weapons program. 

However, in 2002, North Korea admitted to operating a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of the 1994 agreement.

Yesterday, the Mission Manager for North Korea in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence disclosed during a Senate hearing that North Korea “had acquired material sufficient for a production-scale capability of enriching uranium” in violation of agreements to disarm.

Given this record, what has changed that has convinced you and the Administration that the North Korean regime will abide by its commitments in the February 13th agreement?

Concerns have been raised that a new agreement will merely seek to temporarily delay further North Korean activity, rather than focusing, as we did with Libya, on full, permanent, and verifiable dismantlement.

There are a number of additional issues that were not adequately addressed in this agreement.

Pyongyang’s continued transfer of missile technology to South Asia and the Middle East remains of great concern for Members of Congress. 

Press reports that Iranian “observers” were present at North Korea’s missile launches last July, raise troubling questions regarding the continued proliferation of missile expertise to that country and others.

Is this a subject you intend to address in these negotiations?

Then there is North Korea’s continuing counterfeiting of U.S. currency.

The Treasury Department, under the Patriot Act Section 311, imposed sanctions in 2005 against a Macau bank which was designated as “a primary money laundering concern.” 

This was the result of bank officials’ acceptance of North Korean deposits involving counterfeit U.S. currency and other illicit activities. 

As you are aware, counterfeiting another nation’s currency is widely recognized as an economic act of war. 

However, it now appears that an understanding was reached in either Berlin or Beijing whereby these sanctions will soon be lifted.  This appears true even though Pyongyang has not stopped counterfeiting U.S. currency.

What assurances do we have that North Korea has stopped or will stop this assault on our financial system?

We are also concerned about reports that the United States pledged in Beijing to “begin the process of removing the designation of North Korea as a state-sponsor of terrorism.”

I would note that, in 2004, at a press conference, Ambassador Cofer Black, then the State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism, made the following pledge: “We will not expunge a terrorist sponsor’s record simply because time has passed.”

Given that there is little evidence that North Korea has abandoned its long-established policy of supporting terrorism, I would appreciate your explaining why the U.S. is making such an offer to the North Korean regime.

As we are all aware, the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism has taken on a new and greater significance following the tragic events of September 11th, 2001.

Clearly, it should never be used as a bargaining chip in a diplomatic settlement.

Then there is the problem of the unresolved fate of the Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean agents over several decades.

Ambassador Black stated that “We are pressing the North Korean Government to resolve this…So it is very important to us, and I think it is a part of our concern of North Korea being on the state sponsor list.”

He also made a public commitment to the Government and people of our ally, Japan, that their abductees would not be forgotten in resolving terrorist questions with North Korea.  

But there is understandable concern in Tokyo that these and other issues important to Japan have been ignored due to the desire to rapidly close a deal with Pyongyang.

Perhaps the most important unresolved subject is that of verification.

We are all aware that the verification provisions in the 1994 agreement were so inadequate that North Korea was for many years able to develop and operate a secret nuclear weapons program.

Clearly, only vastly more effective verification measures can provide any confidence that North Korea is in fact living up to its commitments.

Without such independent verification, any agreement is little more than a piece of paper.

As you can see, there are many issues that need to be addressed, such as the fate of the highly enriched uranium component of Pyongyang’s nuclear program, before any agreement with North Korea can be finalized.

On that point, I noted with interest today’s story in the Washington Times that, according to a State Department official, North Korea's chief negotiator, the vice minister of foreign affairs, is expected to arrive in the U.S. tomorrow to begin negotiations on normalizing relations between the U.S. and his country, among other issues.

Do you anticipate the establishment of diplomatic ties before the principal outstanding disagreements are fully resolved, or is that to come only at the end of the process?

But I will end my list here, and address these additional questions in the question-and-answer period following your testimony.

Ambassador Hill, I am certain that we all agree that a partial agreement which would allow North Korea to again evade its responsibilities, as it did under the 1994 agreement, is not the answer.
 
Instead, what is needed is a comprehensive and lasting solution to North Korea’s nuclear and missile pursuits, which are a threat to U.S. national security interests and a threat to global peace and security.

This means nothing less than a complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement of North Korea’s unconventional weapons program. 

Ambassador Hill, I look forward to your testimony and to your addressing these and other concerns.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.