State Department Noon Briefing

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING

WEDNESDAY, MAY 2, 2001 1:00 P.M.
(ON THE RECORD UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED)

Q: North Korea? They issued a very belligerent statement yesterday,
and they were talking about launching one of their missiles at us if
we don't behave properly. And also, on a related issue, I believe the
Europeans are meeting today with the North Koreans.

Any comment on either one of those?

MR. REEKER: We touched on the EU troika's visit to North Korea, I
think a couple days ago. But as we have said many times before, the
European Union has played a very constructive role on the Korean
Peninsula and we are going to continue to work together to promote
common goals there.

We have held useful discussions with the Swedish EU presidency and
other EU member-states in the period leading up their visit, and our
consultations on the state of affairs in the Korean Peninsula will
obviously continue. I believe a delegation of senior EU officials will
be in Washington next week specifically to brief US officials on the
results of their Pyongyang visit.

Q: Do you have a day?

MR. REEKER: I don't have a day yet, no.

In terms of your other question, and I think that was looking at sort
of North Korea and our relations with them more broadly, our policy of
review is continuing. We remain in touch with North Korea at the
working level through our New York channel, which you are all familiar
with. We haven't ruled out other contacts with North Korea at the
appropriate time, but the nature of those contacts has yet to be
determined. So we will continue to watch this and look forward to
those meetings next week.