US Presidency
2003

Iranians, like all people, have a right to choose their own government and determine their own destiny, and the United States supports their aspirations to live in freedom. On the Korean Peninsula, an oppressive regime rules a people living in fear and starvation. Throughout the 19effect., the United States relied on a negotiated framework to keep North Korea from gaining nuclear weapons. We now know that that regime was deceiving the world and developing those weapons all along. And today the North Korean regime is using its nuclear program to incite fear and seek concessions. America and the world will not be blackmailed. America is working with the countries of the region, South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia, to find a peaceful solution and to show the North Korean government that nuclear weapons will bring only isolation, economic stagnation, and continued hardship. The North Korean regime will find respect in the world and revival for its people only when it turns away from its nuclear ambitions.