Mitchell Reports   |  March 05, 2013

Kerry hopes North Korea will finally engage in negotiations

Secretary of State John Kerry joins NBC’s Andrea Mitchell to discuss the truce between North and South Korea as well as Dennis Rodman’s recent trip to the country.

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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>>> north korea today threatened to cancer its 60 year truce with south korea unless the u.s. and south korea dropped plans for upcoming scheduled joint military exercises . this as secretary kerry said today he hopes north korea will finally engage in real negotiations. here's more of my interview with the secretary of state.

>> north korea , speaking of military. there seems to be some movement towards agreement with china on sanctions, u.n. sanctions, against the north for the nuclear test. is it helpful when someone as high profile as dennis rodman goes to pyongyang and calls kim jong un a great friend, his best friend , a nice guy? doesn't that undercut pressure from the west?

>> you know what, dennis rodman was a great basketball player, and as a diplomat, he was a great basketball player. that's where we'll leave it.

>> as a diplomat, you have been a senator for decades. you have been your own boss. what's it like to coordinate and as some have suggested in the past regarding secretary clinton, take instructions on foreign policy from people in the white house who, frankly, don't have as much experience as you. this was a problem with your predecessor.

>> i think -- there's lots of experience in the white house . please don't diminish that, number one. number two, i'm delight to work for this president, with the president and his advisors. it's a great team. the president has a terrific vision. that's what i came over here to try to reinforce is to really cement a community of action around common values, common economic interests , common security interests , and in europe, we did that, and in rome we made it clear how we would join together with respect to syria. in egypt we worked hard to try to help a new democracy in the tloez of post rel use, find its economic footing. here in the middle east i have found an extraordinarily strong set of relationships and a renewed interest in peace in the middle east and in other security issues. this has been, i think, working with the president is an honor. i'm privileged that he asked me to do this job. there was nothing as challenging or frankly as rewarding as getting up every day and being able to represent your nation to other countries. our values, the opportunities that we bring to so many places really for such a small investment is exciting to work for, so i'm feeling very excited.

>> thank you.

>> thank you.