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Bush Keeps Eye on North Korea from Texas
Aired December 26, 2002 - 14:01 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: We begin this hour with the nuclear pursuits of North Korea and the diplomatic impact they're causing.
CNN's Dana Bash is live from the White House with the latest -- Dana.
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kyra. Well, President Bush has arrived just a few hours ago in Crawford, Texas. He's going to stay there throughout the week and into the new year, spending the new year there with his family.
He is, for sure, going to be monitoring the situation in North Korea very closely, as he did over this past week, while he was in Camp David for the Christmas holiday.
Meanwhile, his -- some of his cabinet, particularly Secretary of State Colin Powell, has been working with -- working the phones, talking to allies in the region, talking to his counterparts in Russia, in South Korea, in Japan, trying to get them to use their leverage to convince North Korea to cease and desist, to not restart their nuclear program.
Now, earlier on CNN, the IAEA head, Mohammed ElBaradei, said that he thinks this situation is very serious, and he accused North Korea of playing politics with its nuclear program.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MOHAMMED ELBARADEI, CHIEF INSPECTOR, IAEA: I think they are trying to use their nuclear capability, which supposed to be for peaceful ends, to obtain strategic and political objectives, which is totally unacceptable. It is basically a policy of nuclear brinkmanship, and that's what they're trying to do, that if we do not get what they think we should be getting, we are going to use or to use our peaceful nuclear program for questionable activities.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Now, this is an assessment that lot of U.S. officials agree with. They think that North Korea is ramping up its nuclear program in order to get the United States to start negotiations directly with them on issues like a nonaggression pact, and trying to get the U.S. to restart its shipments of fuel oil and food, something that the U.S. says that they're not going to do right now. They say that they're not going to be blackmailed into this, that North Korea in 1994 signed an agreement promising that they would stop its nuclear program, and that until they do that, they're not -- the U.S. is not going to come to the table and start negotiations with North Korea -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Dana Bash, live from the White House. Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired December 26, 2002 - 14:01 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: We begin this hour with the nuclear pursuits of North Korea and the diplomatic impact they're causing.
CNN's Dana Bash is live from the White House with the latest -- Dana.
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kyra. Well, President Bush has arrived just a few hours ago in Crawford, Texas. He's going to stay there throughout the week and into the new year, spending the new year there with his family.
He is, for sure, going to be monitoring the situation in North Korea very closely, as he did over this past week, while he was in Camp David for the Christmas holiday.
Meanwhile, his -- some of his cabinet, particularly Secretary of State Colin Powell, has been working with -- working the phones, talking to allies in the region, talking to his counterparts in Russia, in South Korea, in Japan, trying to get them to use their leverage to convince North Korea to cease and desist, to not restart their nuclear program.
Now, earlier on CNN, the IAEA head, Mohammed ElBaradei, said that he thinks this situation is very serious, and he accused North Korea of playing politics with its nuclear program.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MOHAMMED ELBARADEI, CHIEF INSPECTOR, IAEA: I think they are trying to use their nuclear capability, which supposed to be for peaceful ends, to obtain strategic and political objectives, which is totally unacceptable. It is basically a policy of nuclear brinkmanship, and that's what they're trying to do, that if we do not get what they think we should be getting, we are going to use or to use our peaceful nuclear program for questionable activities.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Now, this is an assessment that lot of U.S. officials agree with. They think that North Korea is ramping up its nuclear program in order to get the United States to start negotiations directly with them on issues like a nonaggression pact, and trying to get the U.S. to restart its shipments of fuel oil and food, something that the U.S. says that they're not going to do right now. They say that they're not going to be blackmailed into this, that North Korea in 1994 signed an agreement promising that they would stop its nuclear program, and that until they do that, they're not -- the U.S. is not going to come to the table and start negotiations with North Korea -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Dana Bash, live from the White House. Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
