Thomas M. Countryman

This Agreement is an example of the strength of our bilateral relationship.

I do not believe that it is in the United States' interest to pursue an autarchic policy of avoiding scientific and technical cooperation in the civilian nuclear field.

I think our policies have not been thoughtful relative to how we deal with these nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.

I would like to see this administration and this Congress make a long-term commitment to steadily expanded resources for the International Atomic Energy Agency because, yes, it is that central to U.S. security and to global security.

The problem with having a gold standard is it needs to have two things. It needs to be replicable, and it actually needs to be the best.

We have become, I would say, dangerously uncompetitive on the nuclear sphere when we cannot compete with countries like the French and the Russians.

We cannot allow these weapons usable materials, to be separated from spent nuclear fuel.

This agreement is not a commercial contract. It does not provide for the sale of nuclear equipment or technology to China.

It is not a giveaway. It rather is a mutual recognition that the U.S. and China have reciprocal obligations to each other that each must meet.

China says--and I think it is borne out by their actions--that they do not support North Korea as a nuclear weapons state and that they wish to see the entire Korean Peninsula denuclearized.

This agreement advances the primary goal we have in every 123 agreement, which is strengthening the longstanding nonproliferation policy of successive administrations.