N.Korea funds freed as nuclear deadline nears

SOUTH KOREA: The United States said on Tuesday Macau had unblocked about $25 million in frozen North Korean funds and urged Pyongyang to take steps to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear plant by a weekend deadline.

The reclusive state has insisted it will only close the reactor, which supplies it with weapons-grade plutonium, once the funds linked to North Korean interests and frozen since 2005 in Macau’s Banco Delta Asia were freed.

Under an international deal agreed two months ago, North Korea has until Saturday to shut down its Yongbyon atomic plant as a first step toward ending its nuclear weapons program.

“The bottom line is that they have unblocked these accounts and the ... authorized account holders can withdraw the funds from those accounts,” U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington.

The Monetary Authority of Macau issued a written statement that made no mention of unblocking the accounts, but Japan’s Kyodo news agency quoted an authority spokeswoman as saying account holders could now withdraw or transfer the funds.

A Banco Delta Asia spokesperson also said the relevant account holders were free to do as they wished with the money.

The funds were frozen after Washington accused the Macau bank of being involved in money laundering, a step that greatly complicated diplomatic efforts to persuade North Korea to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Pyongyang agreed in September 2005 to give up its nuclear programs in talks that include the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States but then refused to come to the talks for more than a year because of the financial dispute.

After conducting its first nuclear test on Oct. 9, North Korea resumed talks that produced a Feb. 13 agreement giving Pyongyang 60 days to shut Yongbyon in return for energy aid.

Furious that the money still had not been freed, North Korea in March walked out of a round of six-country talks.

It was unclear how North Korea would react to the availability of the funds and whether it would meet the Saturday deadline. The United States said there may not be enough time to close down the nuclear reactor safely by then.

“We welcome the step (by Macau authorities), we think it’s a fair step and we think it’s now time to get back on denuclearization,” Christopher Hill, chief U.S. negotiator with North Korea, told reporters in Seoul. “This is precisely what they wanted, which was to have the accounts in BDA made available to the authorized account holders.”.

Seoul, Wednesday, Reuters.