Interview - Sky News Newshour

Subjects: G8 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, Trilateral Strategic Dialogue, North Korea, Whaling

KIERAN GILBERT: Joining me now from Kyoto in Japan where he's attending the G8 Foreign Ministers' meeting is our Foreign Minister Stephen Smith.

Mr Smith, thanks for your time. Can I start by getting some comments from you in relation to your bilateral talks with Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, particularly in relation to anything that you might have discussed on North Korea, given the developments on that front over the last 24 hours or so?

STEPHEN SMITH: I'm here coinciding with the G8 Foreign Ministers' meeting and at the conclusion of the G8 meeting, Australia and the United States and Japan will conduct a Trilateral Strategic Dialogue. But last night I saw Condoleezza Rice, the United States Secretary of State.

North Korea was one of the issues we spoke about. The North Koreans yesterday lodged their nuclear declaration with China. China chaired the Six-Party Talks, which is the vehicle that the international community has been using to try and make progress on North Korean nuclear issues.

We, of course, yet haven't seen the declaration, but people will want to carefully scrutinise that to make sure that it really meets a commitment to disavow North Korea's nuclear intentions. But certainly, we regard that as progress and that was the basis of the conversation with Secretary Rice last night.

GILBERT: Is Secretary Rice sceptical though, Minister?

SMITH: This has been a long hard road to get here, no-one, I think, is asserting that it's over. It's, of course, a significant regional and international issue, holding North Korea to account on its nuclear ambition.

So I think, and just with conversations I've had with other delegations, including other Foreign Ministers from the G8, people are regarding it as progress, but no-one's suggesting that the matter's been solved overnight. And I think people will want to have a very careful look at the detail, the devil will be very much in the detail.

But there's no doubt that this is progress, getting the North Koreans to finally cough up, so to speak, with some of the detail of what they have been doing so far as a nuclear program is concerned.

GILBERT: Okay, let's move on to the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue. You're holding talks later in the day, Japan time, with the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and your Japanese counterpart. We're told that disaster relief is going to dominate those talks. What practical measures can we expect to be agreed upon at the TSD talks in Kyoto?

SMITH: Well, disaster relief and humanitarian assistance and coordinating that in our region will be one issue. But the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue is, in Australia's eyes and in Japan's eyes, a very significant regional discussion that we have. It helps ensure that Japan is fully engaged in the region and it helps ensure that the United States is fully engaged in the region. And both these things, of course, are in Australia's national interest.

But one of the matters that Prime Minister Rudd discussed with his Japanese counterpart a week or so ago on our Prime Minister's very successful visit to Japan was, given that we've seen the Burma cyclone and the Chinese earthquakes, just looking at whether it's possible for us to better coordinate on a regional basis, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief and to try and get better integration between our three nations - between Japan and the United States and Australia - but also see whether that can drive better regional integration of the regions and the international communities' responses to some of these terrible calamities.

I mean, both Burma and China showed that when you have a terrible catastrophe, more often than not, it is beyond the capacity of any one individual nation to deal with it. And the China earthquake was a very good example of that. Not even China could deal with it by itself.

GILBERT: Mr Smith, just finally, we're almost out of time, I just wanted to ask you quickly, have you encountered any sensitivities in Japan over the issue of whaling in our strong position on that front?

SMITH: Well, I'm having a bilateral conversation with Mr Komura, my counterpart, later this evening before the trilateral, and whaling will be an issue that I will raise with Mr Komura again, just with two things; making Australia's point known again that we want the Japanese to cease whaling in the Great Southern Oceans, but also pursuing our efforts diplomatically, to see whether we can persuade Japan to cease that.

And my colleague, Peter Garrett, has been conducting himself along the same lines in the International Whaling Commission meeting in Santiago in the course of this week.

So yes, whaling will certainly come up and we'll endeavour to prosecute our case to try and get a diplomatic solution to get the Japanese to cease whaling in the Great Southern Oceans.

GILBERT: Foreign Minister Stephen Smith from Kyoto, Japan, thanks for your time.

SMITH: Thanks very much.

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