George Stephanopoulos: The president announced a nuclear deal with North Korea this week.
Is it a good deal?
Governor Mitt Romney: Well, I'm hopeful that the key to the deal, which is additional inspectors, IAEA inspectors, will let us determine whether or not they're cheating, because I think the experience that we've had with North Korea is just like the last time that President Clinton entered into an agreed framework, that the North Koreans cheat.
They take advantage of the heavy oil they got, they take advantage of the nuclear reactors they get, they use those things for their country's benefit, but then they continue with their nuclear proliferation efforts.
And in this case, I think we have to recognize that given their history, the key to this agreement being a step forward or, instead, a step back is whether or not there will be adequate IAEA inspections.
George Stephanopoulos: But because of that history, others like John Bolton, the president's own former U.N. ambassador, say it's a bad deal, we're actually rewarding North Korea for bad behavior when we know they cheated in the past.
Governor Mitt Romney: Well, I want to see the final agreement. I want to see how the T's are crossed and the I's are dotted. I'm not going to tell you whether right now it's a good agreement, but I know what the problem is in the agreement, and that is unless the IAEA has the kind of inspections that we can be sure they're not cheating, then it would not be a step forward, and that's going to be critical.
For instance, we had agreements with Saddam Hussein and then he just didn't honor them. And we had agreements with North Korea, they decided not to honor.
Inspection is the key. Of course, we want to trust people, but we want to verify, as well.
George Stephanopoulos: Would you take the risk with this deal?
Governor Mitt Romney: Well, it depends on whether we have adequate inspections. If we have adequate inspections and if they're going to shut down their nuclear reactor, if they will do those two things, then that's a positive development.
But if they're going to not allow inspections throughout the country, then that's not something which is going to work for us.
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.