April 11, 2007
Pyongyang Seeks Deadline Extension
for Reactor Shutdown
Seoul
North Korea has told a visiting US delegation that it would
not meet a Saturday deadline to shut down its nuclear reactor and
wanted an extension of at least 30 days, a television report said.
Kim Kye Gwan, North Korea's top nuclear negotiator, made the
announcement to the delegation in Pyongyang and added that his
country would also allow UN nuclear inspectors back into the country
within a month, the US television network NBC reported.
Pyongyang agreed to shut down its reactor at Yongbyon in February in
talks with the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia
in return for energy and other aid and talks on the normalization of
ties with Washington and Tokyo.
Implementation of the February agreement has been delayed over a
dispute involving frozen North Korean accounts at a Macau bank.
Pyongyang refused to shut down the reactor until the money was
released, and on Tuesday, the US government announced that the Banco
Delta Asia was ready to free the accounts.
Christopher Hill, the chief US negotiator in the nuclear talks,
pressed Pyongyang Wednesday to start dismantling its nuclear-weapons
programme, saying the dispute over the money frozen by US sanctions
has been resolved.
"It's our hope that the DPRK will understand the need to move ahead
with denuclearisation," Hill said.
However, Hill, who spoke from Seoul after meeting with South Korean
Foreign Minister Song Min Soon, said it remained to be seen whether
Pyongyang would consider the matter of the bank accounts settled.
"That's obviously the key question, and I think we are going to find
that out in the next day or so," he said.
According to American and South Korean officials, the holders of 50
accounts containing $25 million could immediately access their
money.
The accounts were frozen when the US Treasury Department banned all
US transactions with Banco Delta Asia after linking the North Korean
accounts to illicit financial activities, such as counterfeiting,
drug trafficking and money laundering.
The US delegation in North Korea discussed the frozen accounts with
Kim during Wednesday's meeting. The Americans had travelled to
Pyongyang to recover the remains of US soldiers killed during the
1950-1953 Korean War. It was due to travel to Seoul Wednesday at the
end of a four-day visit.
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