MR. TIM RUSSERT: Our issues this Sunday: North Korea’s Kim Jong Il defies the world, testing long-range missiles which one day could deliver nuclear warheads. Can this man be stopped? With us: from the Bush administration, the third-ranking official at the State Department, Ambassador Nicholas Burns; the former assistant secretary of defense, Ashton Carter of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government; the man who led the negotiations for the 1994 nuclear agreement with North Korea, Robert Gallucci, dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University; and the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who has visited North Korea five times, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico.

And in our MEET THE PRESS MINUTE, former President Gerald Ford turns 93 this week. He last appeared as president on MEET THE PRESS 31 years ago when he talked about age as a state of mind.

But first, North Korea. On the Fourth of July North Korea tested medium- and long-range missiles, and their nuclear program appears to be full speed ahead. What is the Bush administration going to do about it? Here with us, the under secretary of state, Nicholas Burns.

Mr. Ambassador, good morning.

MR. NICHOLAS BURNS: Thank you, Tim. Good morning.

MR. RUSSERT: Will the United States insist that the United Nations impose sanctions against North Korea?

MR. BURNS: Well, we are pursuing a very aggressive resolution up in New York at the Security Council, and we think we’ve got the votes to pass that, but we’re also operating on multiple diplomatic fronts. We have our lead negotiator, Chris Hill, Ambassador Hill, in Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo this week; President Bush and Secretary Rice have been working the phones with, with their counterparts; and we also have a very interesting development today. The Chinese government is sending tonight to Pyongyang a senior delegation. You know, frankly we think it’s time for China to use its influence with North Korea. The Chinese have influence, certainly more than the United States and the other members of the international community, dealing with this problem. China now has an opportunity to put its best foot forward, to send the North Koreans a direct message that these missile tests cannot be tolerated, and that the North Koreans now have to come back to the September 19, 2005, agreement, and they’ve got to denuclearize, give up their nuclear ambitions and abide by the agreement that they, that they made with the rest of us nearly a year ago.

MR. RUSSERT: But the South Koreans and the Chinese have both said they do not believe there should be sanctions against North Korea. Will the U.S. absolutely insist that there be sanctions in the U.N. resolution?

MR. BURNS: If you look at this U.N. resolution that’s under debate in New York, it does—it’s a Chapter 7 resolution, so it has the effect of compulsory behavior by all the member states. It says that what the North Koreans did was a threat to international peace and security, it does ask all member states not to engage in nuclear trade with North Korea. That strikes us as an obvious point. And I think what we have to do, we’ll see a lot of diplomacy over the next couple of days, we’ll have to see how the Chinese and Russians react to this, but our view is that the six parties—or the five parties—ought to remain united, and that the goal of the current diplomacy should be to use the combined leverage of China and Russia, of South Korea, Japan and the United States, to force the North Koreans back to the negotiating table. That’s the—certainly the best policy for the United States.

MR. RUSSERT: “Force the North Koreans back to the negotiating table.” There are many, as you know, Mr. Ambassador, who believe the North Koreans did this launch on the Fourth of July to get our attention because they saw the way we were treating Iran differently than we’re treating North Korea. Here’s one Nicholas Burns on National Public Radio: “With Iran, the United States has made an offer and that is we were willing to sit down and negotiate with the Iranians assuming and contingent upon their suspension of their nuclear activities at their plant in Natanz, in Iran.” Why not sit down in the same way with North Koreans? Say to them, “Stop developing your program and we’ll sit down with you one-on-one”?

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MR. BURNS: Well, Tim, we’re trying to sit down with the North Koreans in the context of the six-party talks. We’ve been saying for months now that the right step forward is for North Korea to return to these talks. But we really don’t see the logic in turning this into a test of wills between two countries—the United States and North Korea. The fact is that China has the same interests as the United States—it should have the same interests—and that is to stop the North Korean nuclear program. Our allies, Japan and South Korea, have the same interests, and the Russians do as well. And so we think we’re far better off working within the framework of the six-party talks, because you get in that process the combined leverage, the combined strength, and frankly the combined pressure on North Korea of all these different countries. I simply don’t see why it’s in the interest of the United States to get those countries out of the way and only deal with North Korea directly.

So the problem here is not the lack of discussion between the United States and North Korea. We’re perfectly willing to sit down with them in that six-party environment. And in that sense, it’s analogous to what we’re trying to do with Iran. Secretary Rice announced about a month ago that should the Iranians meet the condition of suspension of their own nuclear activities, we’d be willing to sit down in another multilateral forum, and that’s with the Europeans and the Russians and Chinese.

So really, you know, the North Korea problem is not a problem just for the United States. What they did the other day on July Fourth was to disrupt the peace and harmony of their relations with the Asian countries. And the Asian countries want to be involved in these negotiations.

MR. RUSSERT: Is it the policy of the Bush administration that we would like to see regime change in North Korea?

MR. BURNS: Well, this is one of the most despotic regimes in the world. It’s a major human rights violator, there’s massive famine. And certainly we hope for—that the day will come when those people in North Korea can live in peace and be different—be governed by a different type of government. What we’ve got to do now, of course, is focus on the most immediate problem, and that problem is nuclear weapons. The problem is the ballistic launches of the other day.

I think the thing to remember about those launches, by the way, they were provocative, they were reckless, they were also unsuccessful. They fired four Scud missiles, intermediate-range missiles. They tried to fire the longer-range missile, the Taepodong, and that was spectacularly unsuccessful. It crashed into the Sea of Japan.

So we obviously have an opportunity now for diplomacy, and an opportunity to use the combined strength of all these countries to try—to provide some leverage, put some leverage against the North Koreans, and that’s what we’re—we will continue to try to do in the coming days and coming weeks.

MR. RUSSERT: Will the United States give North Korea security assurances that we will not attack their country or seek to undermine their regime?

MR. BURNS: If you look back at this historic agreement that was signed in the six-party framework on September 19 of 2005, those types of, of assurances are in that agreement. But the North Koreans have obligations, and that is to take down their nuclear program, dismantle it, dismantle their weapons of mass destruction programs in a verifiable way before all those assurances can go into place, all the other elements of the agreement can be put into place. And what we’ve seen since then is we’ve seen the United States and Russia and China and Japan and South Korea willing to go forward, willing to sit down, willing to implement this entire agreement that you just referred to, Tim, but we see the North Koreans walking away from it. So we’ve got to be very persistent, and frankly very tough in putting—in, in combining with these other countries to pressure the North Koreans to live up to their commitments.

MR. RUSSERT: But we would, we, we would be willing to give North Korea increased economic aid, perhaps light nuclear reactors for peaceful means, and a security assurance if, in fact, they sat down and negotiated?

MR. BURNS: The North Koreans know what’s in the September 19 agreement, and it’s very specific about what the United States is willing to do to take a step forward towards them should they dismantle all their nuclear programs and their weapons of mass destruction. But they’ve got responsibilities in this agreement, and no agreement is whole until both sides meet their agreement. And what we’ve seen, Tim, especially on July Fourth, is the North Koreans in outright violation of the agreement that we made with them last September.

MR. RUSSERT: Why do you think the North Koreans chose July Fourth?

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