October 25, 2006 | By Nathaniel Ward

At Heritage, Rice calls for hard line on North Korea and Iran

Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner, left, greets Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Wednesday at The Heritage Foundation.

Multimedia

• Watch the video (Windows Media)
• Listen to streaming audio (MP3)

Press coverage

• Full text of Secretary Rice's remarks
• Associated Press
• Agence France-Presse
• More coverage

Tools

• Send this article to a friend
• Respond to this article
• Print this article
• Send via AOL Instant Messenger
• Send via Yahoo Instant Messenger
• Digg this
• Add to del.icio.us
• Furl this

North Korea and Iran must both face the consequences of their nuclear proliferation activities and their continued threats to their neighbors, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today at The Heritage Foundation in an address broadcast live on C-SPAN..

How the United States and the international community respond to the North Korean crisis will have an impact in other parts of the world. “The Iranian regime is watching how the world is responding to North Korea,” Rice explained. She called on the United Nations to quickly “pass a resolution now that holds Iran accountable for its defiance.”

“Our strategy [in Northeast Asia] reflects the fundamental reality of the problem,” she told the audience in Heritage’s Allison Auditorium. “North Korea's behavior poses a regional challenge and it must be addressed in a regional context.”

“The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to any state or non-state entity would be considered a grave threat to the United States and we would hold North Korea fully accountable for the consequences of any such action.”

Rice explained America’s four-part strategy for dealing with proliferation issues to the more than 200 reporters and Heritage members in the audience. She said the United States is

1. “Strengthening our strategic relationships in Northeast Asia,” especially with Japan, South Korea, Russia and China, in order to “better secure our common interests.” These countries are now working with the United States to ensure North Korea “pursues policies that are not hostile to its neighbors.”
2. “Isolating North Korea from the benefits of participation in the international system” through new sanctions and embargoes.
3. “Expanding measures to defend” against aggression from rogue regimes. These efforts include new cooperation on missile defense systems and strengthening the Proliferation Security Initiative.
4. Working to preserve and enhance the existing nonproliferation regime by encouraging nuclear countries like India to adopt peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

Many liberals have rejected this approach to the problem and called for America to resume direct negotiations with North Korea. But Rice explained that earlier efforts at a “bilateral approach ultimately did not succeed” since North Korea was “secretly developing another program to build more weapons.”

“Finding ways to talk to North Korea is not the issue,” she said. “The real issue is what North Korea has to say and then what it will do.”

Rice was dismissive of liberals and others who hold the United States responsible for North Korea’s belligerence, saying this argument “misses the point.” The one constant in any diplomatic dealings with North Korea over the past several decades, she argued, has been North Korea’s intransigence and duplicity.

“North Korea's claims that our policies are hostile are simply excuses for the government's refusal to make constructive choices and to stick with them,” she added.

Secretary Rice’s address was the 11th annual B.C. Lee Lecture, a speaker series focusing on America’s relationship with the Asia-Pacific region. Twenty-one television cameras recorded the event, and more than 24 ambassadors were in attendance.

Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.