Walkthrough With Reporters at Six-Party Talks

Afternoon Walkthrough With Reporters at Six-Party Talks

Christopher R. Hill, Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs South Beauty Restaurant, China World Hotel Beijing, China July 17, 2007

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I’m not talking right now. I won’t talk I’ll see you later. We just had a nice lunch. Not a lot of specific discussion.

QUESTION: Did you have discussions at the Embassy, too?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Very briefly, actually, because we had very bad traffic. So we only had a few minutes at the Embassy.

QUESTION: What’s your agenda for the rest of the day?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I think we have some more bilaterals with everybody.

QUESTION: (Inaudible).

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Japan, Russia. I think we are going to finish this one as well. I think tomorrow we will have China bilaterals.

QUESTION: So you’re continuing your meetings with the North Koreans after this?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Yes. We really didn’t have much discussion at lunch.

QUESTION: Any discussions about the next phase?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I don’t want to get into what we talked about.

QUESTION: Are you optimistic after this lunch? (Inaudible.) What was the atmosphere like?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: The atmosphere was very business like.

QUESTION: Do you plan to meet with the North Koreans again today? Or are you finished with the North Koreans today?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I think we’re going to finish our discussion, because we didn’t have much of a discussion at lunch. There’s some other things we want to talk about. And then I have to have a meeting with the Russians. So I don’t have a lot of time.

QUESTION: What do you hope to achieve in the next two days?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I’ll talk to you later about that. I want to have some bilateral meetings with several people, and then we will talk about what we hope to achieve -- the same thing I talked about in Seoul [laughter], if you had been there.

QUESTION: Any demands that came up now?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: No, we really have not had much of a discussion. We reviewed a lot of things.

Okay. Thank you. Try the food there, though, it’s really good. I recommend the mapo doufu. [Laughter]

ENDS

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