Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/u-s-rejects-direct-north-korea-talks-despite-threats Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript North Korea officials threatened another nuclear test Tuesday unless the United States agrees to hold direct talks. Policy experts discuss President Bush's continued rejection of direct talks and reaction to the test. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. RAY SUAREZ: A day after North Korea claimed it tested a nuclear weapon, the Bush administration stood firm: There will be no return to direct negotiations with the communist country. TONY SNOW, White House Press Secretary: Having learned from the mistakes, having learned from the inability of prior administration efforts to try to deal with the North Koreans, we thought, "You know what? If we go it alone, we don't have the leverage. We need to come up with a much more practical way of trying to deal with a regime that sometimes does not seem to respond to rational incentives." RAY SUAREZ: Snow's comment was the latest in the war of words over North Korea between Republicans and Democrats. Senator Hillary Clinton is leading her party's assault.SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), New York: Some of the reason we are facing this danger is because of the failed policies of the Bush administration. And I regret deeply their failure to deal with the threat posed by North Korea, and I hope that the administration will now adopt a much more effective response than what they have up until now. RAY SUAREZ: President Bush reversed President Clinton's policy of bilateral talks shortly after taking office. In a news conference with the South Korean president in 2001, Mr. Bush said that approach would not work.GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States: Part of the problem in dealing with North Korea, there's not very much transparency. We're not certain as to whether or not they're keeping all terms of all agreements. And that's part of the issue that the president and I discussed, is when you make an agreement with a country that is secretive, how do you — how are you aware as to whether or not they're keeping the terms of the agreement? RAY SUAREZ: In 2003, the administration agreed to pursue a dialogue with North Korea, but only through six-party talks that also included China, Russia, South Korea and Japan. The Bush policy was a distinct break from the Clinton administration's direct engagement with the North Koreans.Top-level Clinton officials met several times with their North Korean counterparts. The highest level meeting came at the end of Clinton's final term in 2000, when Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met with the North's leader, Kim Jong Il, in Pyongyang.But the most publicized and controversial negotiations came in 1994, as the two countries edged closer to war over the Korean nuclear program. Former President Jimmy Carter traveled to Pyongyang for talks with the former North Korean leader, Kim Il-Sung. Under their agreement, North Korea promised to freeze its nuclear weapons program in return for Western aid. But nearly a decade later, the Bush administration declared the North Koreans had cheated on that deal.