NORTH KOREA:The US said yesterday that Macau authorities have unblocked funds in frozen North Korean accounts and urged Pyongyang to work toward shutting down a nuclear reactor by a weekend deadline.
The reclusive state had insisted it will only close the reactor, which supplies it with weapons-grade plutonium, once $25 million (€18.6 million) in funds linked to North Korean interests and frozen since 2005 in Macau's Banco Delta Asia (BDA) are freed.
Under an international deal agreed two months ago to end its nuclear weapons programme, North Korea has until Saturday to start shutting down its Yongbyon atomic plant.
"I will let the Macanese authorities speak as to how they want to put it, but the bottom line is that they have unblocked these accounts and the account-holders can - authorised account-holders can - withdraw the funds from those accounts," US state department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington.
A Banco Delta Asia spokesman said the relevant account-holders were free to do as they wished with the money. "We'll be dealing with the money according to the requests of the customers," said Joe Wong.
"If we get approached by customers who want to take the money out, they can do as they like." The funds were frozen after Washington accused the Macau bank of being involved in money-laundering.
The US announcement came as top US officials visited both sides of the divided Korean peninsula.
"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 denuclearisation," Christopher Hill, chief US negotiator with North Korea, said in Seoul. "This is precisely what they wanted, which was to have the accounts in BDA made available to the authorised account-holders." Asked if he thought the Saturday deadline for North Korea to shut down Yongbyon will be missed, Chinese nuclear envoy Wu Dawei said: "There is that concern."
The state department stopped short of demanding outright that North Korea meet the deadline and suggested it might not be possible to shut Yongbyon safely by Saturday.
"I know that you are bumping up against the technical ability to do that safely," said Mr McCormack. "We'll see where we are on Saturday. We think that . . . everybody should act in such a way that they intend to meet the 60-day deadline."