Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Los Angeles Times
April 14, 2007
A squabble over freeing funds in a Macao bank sets back compliance due today. The U.S. expresses frustration.
By Bob Drogin, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — North Korea will fail to meet today's deadline to halt its nuclear weapons program, but it is unclear whether the landmark disarmament agreement is nearing collapse even before it takes effect.
The Communist regime agreed two months ago to shut and seal all operations within 60 days at the primary nuclear facilities it has used to produce weapons-grade plutonium. In exchange, the United States and four other nations agreed to provide economic, humanitarian and energy assistance.
But a dispute over $25 million frozen in dozens of North Korean accounts at a Macao bank for the last 18 months at the request of the Bush administration unexpectedly stopped the disarmament deal from proceeding.
After nearly two months of confusion over whether and how to release the funds, officials in the United States and Macao, a special administrative region of China, announced Wednesday that North Korea could collect the money. But Pyongyang did not do so before the bank closed for the weekend. Washington originally had pledged to resolve the dispute over the frozen funds by mid-March.
Under the Feb. 13 disarmament deal, North Korea agreed to admit United Nations nuclear inspectors to monitor and verify the shutdown of a five-megawatt nuclear reactor and reprocessing facility at Yongbyon. North Korea also committed itself to disabling its nuclear production facilities in a follow-up phase.
Officials in Vienna at the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, said Friday that they had received no invitation, however. The officials said it would take about two weeks to arrange a full nuclear inspection at Yongbyon.
Meeting reporters in Beijing, chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill expressed frustration at North Korea's failure to even invite the IAEA inspectors in before the 60-day cutoff date.
"I think it's time for them to get on with their denuclearization obligations," he said.
Hill said he had no idea how long the North Koreans might now need to start shutting down operations.
"They could have done it, frankly, weeks ago," he added.
He said North Korea's approach was "certainly worrisome to all of us who see them approaching this date rather lethargically. We believe this date is something they can — they could have lived with."
Hill said he would discuss the response to North Korea's lack of action with the other parties to the February agreement: China, South Korea, Japan and Russia. He said that he did not discuss extending the deadline during his discussions with Chinese authorities earlier Friday, although he indicated that he had limited patience for a lengthy delay.
"I don't believe we can go on for another month," he said. "I don't want to put a date or hour, but another month is not in my constitution."
Tom Casey, a State Department spokesman, said in Washington that officials in Pyongyang still could "take steps to meet their commitments" short of the shutdown required under the agreement. He suggested that extending a last-minute invitation to IAEA inspectors would indicate progress.
"We need to see where we are tomorrow," he said.
North Korea has said it would begin shutting its nuclear program within days of retrieving the $25 million. In its first public comments on the issue, the Foreign Ministry in Pyongyang said in a statement Friday that it would "confirm soon" whether the funds in fact were available, according to the state-run KCNA news agency.
The government "remains unchanged in its will to implement the Feb. 13 agreement and will also move when the lifting of the sanction is proved to be a reality," KCNA reported.
Financial authorities in Macao froze the funds at the Banco Delta Asia in September 2005 at the request of the U.S. Treasury, which declared that the money stemmed from drug trafficking, counterfeiting and other illegal activities. U.S. officials struggled to unfreeze the funds in recent weeks and finally concluded this week that the deadlock had been resolved so that North Korea, which denied the U.S. charges, could recover the money.
Bush administration officials this week described the freezing of the $25 million as a bargaining chip in their diplomatic effort to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear arsenal. If so, the tactic had mixed results.
The initial U.S. decision to blacklist the bank so angered the government in Pyongyang that it refused to participate in nuclear arms talks for more than a year. During that time, North Korea stepped up its nuclear reprocessing program and finally tested a small nuclear device Oct. 9 in an underground chamber in the vicinity of Punggye. The government now is believed to have enough plutonium to fuel about six nuclear weapons.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democratic presidential hopeful who returned Friday from a visit to North Korea, said he believed the regime would move "early next week" to invite the IAEA inspectors in and start shutting the nuclear reactor and related facilities.
"They said they'll do it as soon as they get the money," he said in a telephone interview from Dallas. "I expect they'll keep their word."
April 14, 2007
A squabble over freeing funds in a Macao bank sets back compliance due today. The U.S. expresses frustration.
By Bob Drogin, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — North Korea will fail to meet today's deadline to halt its nuclear weapons program, but it is unclear whether the landmark disarmament agreement is nearing collapse even before it takes effect.
The Communist regime agreed two months ago to shut and seal all operations within 60 days at the primary nuclear facilities it has used to produce weapons-grade plutonium. In exchange, the United States and four other nations agreed to provide economic, humanitarian and energy assistance.
But a dispute over $25 million frozen in dozens of North Korean accounts at a Macao bank for the last 18 months at the request of the Bush administration unexpectedly stopped the disarmament deal from proceeding.
After nearly two months of confusion over whether and how to release the funds, officials in the United States and Macao, a special administrative region of China, announced Wednesday that North Korea could collect the money. But Pyongyang did not do so before the bank closed for the weekend. Washington originally had pledged to resolve the dispute over the frozen funds by mid-March.
Under the Feb. 13 disarmament deal, North Korea agreed to admit United Nations nuclear inspectors to monitor and verify the shutdown of a five-megawatt nuclear reactor and reprocessing facility at Yongbyon. North Korea also committed itself to disabling its nuclear production facilities in a follow-up phase.
Officials in Vienna at the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, said Friday that they had received no invitation, however. The officials said it would take about two weeks to arrange a full nuclear inspection at Yongbyon.
Meeting reporters in Beijing, chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill expressed frustration at North Korea's failure to even invite the IAEA inspectors in before the 60-day cutoff date.
"I think it's time for them to get on with their denuclearization obligations," he said.
Hill said he had no idea how long the North Koreans might now need to start shutting down operations.
"They could have done it, frankly, weeks ago," he added.
He said North Korea's approach was "certainly worrisome to all of us who see them approaching this date rather lethargically. We believe this date is something they can — they could have lived with."
Hill said he would discuss the response to North Korea's lack of action with the other parties to the February agreement: China, South Korea, Japan and Russia. He said that he did not discuss extending the deadline during his discussions with Chinese authorities earlier Friday, although he indicated that he had limited patience for a lengthy delay.
"I don't believe we can go on for another month," he said. "I don't want to put a date or hour, but another month is not in my constitution."
Tom Casey, a State Department spokesman, said in Washington that officials in Pyongyang still could "take steps to meet their commitments" short of the shutdown required under the agreement. He suggested that extending a last-minute invitation to IAEA inspectors would indicate progress.
"We need to see where we are tomorrow," he said.
North Korea has said it would begin shutting its nuclear program within days of retrieving the $25 million. In its first public comments on the issue, the Foreign Ministry in Pyongyang said in a statement Friday that it would "confirm soon" whether the funds in fact were available, according to the state-run KCNA news agency.
The government "remains unchanged in its will to implement the Feb. 13 agreement and will also move when the lifting of the sanction is proved to be a reality," KCNA reported.
Financial authorities in Macao froze the funds at the Banco Delta Asia in September 2005 at the request of the U.S. Treasury, which declared that the money stemmed from drug trafficking, counterfeiting and other illegal activities. U.S. officials struggled to unfreeze the funds in recent weeks and finally concluded this week that the deadlock had been resolved so that North Korea, which denied the U.S. charges, could recover the money.
Bush administration officials this week described the freezing of the $25 million as a bargaining chip in their diplomatic effort to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear arsenal. If so, the tactic had mixed results.
The initial U.S. decision to blacklist the bank so angered the government in Pyongyang that it refused to participate in nuclear arms talks for more than a year. During that time, North Korea stepped up its nuclear reprocessing program and finally tested a small nuclear device Oct. 9 in an underground chamber in the vicinity of Punggye. The government now is believed to have enough plutonium to fuel about six nuclear weapons.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democratic presidential hopeful who returned Friday from a visit to North Korea, said he believed the regime would move "early next week" to invite the IAEA inspectors in and start shutting the nuclear reactor and related facilities.
"They said they'll do it as soon as they get the money," he said in a telephone interview from Dallas. "I expect they'll keep their word."