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Concrete Progress In North Korea

Floor Speech

Date: July 24, 2007
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: National Security Foreign Affairs Energy


CONCRETE PROGRESS IN NORTH KOREA -- (House of Representatives - July 24, 2007)

Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Madam Speaker, last Tuesday the Post and Courier of Charleston, South Carolina, editorialized: "After more than 5 years of impasse and hostility, the patient multinational diplomacy launched by President Bush has borne its first fruit in North Korea. The intricate deal reached last spring for a path to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula is advancing with the shutdown of a reactor that produces plutonium for the dictatorship's nuclear weapons program.

"It signals that North Korea is committed, so far, to a step-by-step bettering of relations with its neighbors and particularly with the United States. The shutdown was confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency.''

In 2003, I participated in a rare delegation visiting Pyongyang, and I am grateful that "the six-nation framework devised by Mr. Bush and ably hosted by China ..... has led to the current progress.'' I saw firsthand where North Korea can benefit by opening its economy.

In conclusion, God bless our troops, and we will never forget September the 11th and the Glasgow airport attack.


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