Political Quotes

“I wish to comment on the foreign operations appropriations bill being considered by the Senate. There is one area of this bill that I believe deserves particular attention, and that is the series of provisions relating to U.S. funding for the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, or KEDO. This is the organization that is implementing certain provisions of the U.S.-North Korean nuclear Agreed Framework of 1994. U.S. funds for KEDO pay for the heavy fuel oil that the U.S. is committed to provide to North Korea in exchange for its agreement to freeze and eventually dismantle its plutonium production program that could be used for nuclear weapons. Mr. President, that Agreed Framework is working in our national security interests now. Under that agreement, North Korea has frozen its plutonium production facilities and canned almost all of the spent nuclear reactor fuel from its graphite-moderated reactor in Yongbyon, all under the watchful eye of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) personnel and monitoring instruments. As recent Secretaries of Defense and Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have repeatedly and consistently testified to Congress, it is clearly in our security interest that North Korea not produced any more plutonium and that its spend reactor fuel be canned and removed from North Korea. In addition, it is important for North Korea to account for all its past plutonium production to the satisfaction of the IAEA.”