Q: Some media have carried reports to the effect that the offer by the North Korean leader Kim Chong Il that Pyongyang could refrain from developing ballistic missiles was nothing more than a joke. Could you comment on these reports?

A: I think that there is hardly any need to confirm that during the talks in Pyongyang the North Korean side really expressed the view that if countries concerned about the DPRK's missile program launched free of charge two or three DPRK satellites a year for the North Korean space program, Pyongyang would have no need for carrier rockets of its own manufacture. This position is reproduced just literally in the reports of the South Korean journalists who visited Pyongyang only recently and met with the DPRK leader on August 12. Incidentally, the South Korean press does not doubt this position.

It is another thing that attracts attention. If this initiative is implemented, the exponents of the development of an American national ABM system will lose one of their key arguments in favor of deploying such a system. When the stakes are so high, there is nothing surprising about the appearance of such "interpretations."