North Korea talks could restart soon
Negotiators seek to refocus on disarmament
BEIJING -- Talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear threat that ground to a halt over a stalled bank payment may restart soon as negotiators seek to focus on disarmament, the chief US envoy said yesterday.
Negotiators at the six-party talks in Beijing could reconvene after $25 million in a Macau bank passes to Pyongyang hands, meeting North Korea's demand to see the money before it discusses any nuclear moves, Christopher Hill told reporters before heading back to Washington.
The talks could resume in a week or two, he said.
"As soon as we get this bank transfer done, we probably will put our heads together and decide whether we need to have another six-party meeting," Hill said. "I think that's quite possible, because there are a couple of things that we want to get done."
In Moscow, Russia offered North Korea the prospect of energy deals and a possible decision on writing off $8.8 billion in Soviet-era debt at a meeting yesterday of what used to be a regular bilateral economic commission.
"The main task . . . was to renew all the trade and economic cooperation which was somewhat frozen over the past six years," said Konstantin Pulikovsky, cochairman of the commission.
He said the North Korean team told him Pyongyang could not repay the debt and that political leaders would decide whether to write it off.
Negotiators from North and South Korea, China, the United States, Japan, and Russia gathered in Beijing on Monday, seeking to steer forward a Feb. 13 deal which would give North Korea aid and security assurances in return for shutting down a nuclear reactor and preparing other disarmament steps by mid-April.
But a snag over North Korean bank accounts in Macau diverted the meeting into long, fruitless talks over money transfers.
Throughout the session that ended Thursday, North Korea avoided discussing the deal to shut its plutonium-making Yongbyon reactor, demanding that its money in Macau's Banco Delta Asia first be transferred to a bank in Beijing.
On Monday, the US Treasury announced an end to its investigation into the Macau bank -- accused by Washington of harboring North Korean earnings from international crime -- opening the way for authorities there to unfreeze the accounts.
Chinese envoy Wu Dawei said on Thursday that moving the money was not as simple as writing a check or shipping cash in the back of a truck.
Hill said the talks still had to sketch out what North Korea must do in the next phase of nuclear disarmament after the mid-April deadline, including forming a list of nuclear activities it will have to declare for future dismantlement.
Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso said he did not think the bank wrangle would endanger the deal to shut Yongbyon.
South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon told local television he expected the bank impasse to clear over the next week, opening the way for renewed disarmament talks.
North Korea boycotted six-party talks for more than a year until last December, blaming the financial crackdown, and Washington agreed to defuse their complaints as part of the February deal.
Pyongyang was pressed back into the six-party negotiations after its first ever nuclear test explosion last October brought UN sanctions and widespread condemnation, including from its longtime backer China. 