15 June 2009

Biden on Sanctions Against North Korea

Vice president answers questions on NBC’s Meet the Press

Vice President Biden was a guest on the nationally televised program Meet the Press on June 14 and answered questions from host David Gregory on a wide range of domestic and international issues.

Following is an excerpt from that interview:

(begin transcript)

Meet the Press with David Gregory

June 14, 2009

msnbc.com

MR. GREGORY: Let me ask you about another flash point this morning, and that is North Korea. New sanctions in place, the ability for the international community to interdict vessels coming from North Korea and look for nuclear materials. The North has said this is a provocative step, has said it would be an act of war. What now?

VICE PRES. BIDEN: We're going to enforce the U.N. resolution. The U.N. resolution is probably the most unifying thing that's been done. Look, this is -- North Korea is a very destabilizing element in East Asia. Everyone now realizes that. The Chinese realize it, the Russians realize it. They've gone further than they've ever gone in joining us on real sanctions against North Korea, and it is important that we make sure those sanctions stick. And those sanctions prohibit them from exporting or importing weapons, they allow interdiction of their ships under certain circumstances, they, they -- all host countries are, are to deny them portage if in fact they are asked to be boarded and they will not allow that to be happened, if there's good reason to believe they're carrying weapons. And so this is a matter of us now keeping the pressure on. Again ...

MR. GREGORY: Even if they say it's an act of war.

VICE PRES. BIDEN: Even ...

MR. GREGORY: Even if they say it's a provocation of war.

VICE PRES. BIDEN: Even if they say an act of war. They say a lot of things. This is a fellow and this is a regime that says an awful lot of things. And the truth of the matter is that it is a destabilizing force in the region. There is a coalescing of that conclusion on the part of the Chinese, the Russians, Japanese, South Koreans, Americans like never before. And we are ...

MR. GREGORY: What does he want?

VICE PRES. BIDEN: God only knows what he wants. You know, there's all kinds of discussions whether this is about succession, wanting his, his son to succeed him, whether or not he's looking for respect, whether or not he really wants a nuclear capability to threaten the region. There's a whole range of them. We can't guess his motives, we just have to deal with the reality that a North Korea that is either proliferating weapons and/or missiles or a North Korea that is using those weapons or has them mounted on missiles is a serious danger and a threat to the world and particularly in East Asia.

(end transcript)