Four days of negotiations on freezing North Korea’s nuclear programme were derailed on Thursday after no progress was seen by Pyongyang in unfreezing its funds in a Macau bank as promised.
North Korea has been insisting since Monday on transferring the US $25 million funds at Macau’s Banco Delta Asia to its account prior to shutting its main nuclear reactor by mid-April.
Christopher Hill, the US envoy to the talks, was exasperated by the delay and said it needed to be overcome quickly.
The funds had been held in the Macau bank due to an US investigation about its origins. The USA had agreed to resolve the funds transfer issue within thirty days as part of the February deal.
USA had earlier accused the Macau bank of harboring money earned through international crimes. The accusation had led the Macau authorities to take over the bank and freeze the accounts.
Now, beyond the thirty days deadline, the money is stuck in Macau. Both the Macau authorities and the bank said on Thursday they had no news of fresh developments.
It is the refusal of Bank of China to accept the transfer as it did not want to play a role in getting the ‘dirty money’ back to North Korea that delays the process, according to a diplomatic source.
America had taken some steps this month towards unfreezing the accounts. It had said last Monday that it had resolved a dispute over the funds with North Korea. The USA has been working to unfreeze the accounts since some time.
The frozen accounts were a sore in the flesh of North Korea that it had refused to take part in the six-nation talks for over a year.
A statement released by host China on Thursday only said the six countries agreed to meet again.
