Bill Clinton: “I think I can do no better than to reiterate what I have always said, that North Korea's fate is still in its own hands…”

“I think I can do no better than to reiterate what I have always said, that North Korea's fate is still in its own hands; it must decide what it own future should be. I think at this time when North Korea has shown a willingness to stop reprocessing and to stop refueling, and when our talks are about to begin again next Friday, we should take the facts as we have them and keep working for progress. This is an issue which is very important to the long-term security of the United States. The question of a country that belongs to the nonproliferation regime deciding to become a nuclear power, the prospect that nuclear capacity could be transferred either by design or by accident to other countries or to rogue groups, this is a very serious thing for our long-term security. And we have spent a lot of time to make sure we are firm and deliberate; but that firmness, that deliberateness has led to these talks, which were interrupted when Kim Il-song passed away. We start the talks again on Friday. The agreement the North Koreans made is still holding about refueling and reprocessing. I think we should focus on that now and keep working for a satisfactory conclusion.”