Agence France-Presse,
Pyongyang (AFP): Russia blamed the United States Monday after North Korea missed a deadline to start shutting down its nuclear programme, saying Washington failed to end a banking dispute that has blocked progress for months.
The North insisted Friday it would take the first step under a disarmament accord as soon as it receives 25 million dollars which was frozen in a Macau bank under US-inspired sanctions.
But there has been no word since then on when and how the cash transfer will be made and a Saturday deadline for the shutdown of its reactor passed without any progress.
The US says the funds were freed for collection last week. Russia, one of the six nations which reached the February 13 accord, disagreed.
The US government is “not removing the obstacles to using this money and this is creating problems. We cannot move forward as long as the North Korean side says that it has not received the money,” Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov said, as quoted by the Interfax news agency.
Diplomatic efforts should be focused not on imposing deadlines on Pyongyang but on fulfilling previous agreements, he added. In tandem with the February accord, the US undertook to try to settle the row over the accounts which were frozen in 2005 on suspicion of money-laundering and counterfeiting.
“We need to talk not about deadlines but about fulfilling these agreements,” Losyukov said.
There were separate signs of frustration among other members of the six-party talks, which group the two Koreas, the US, Russia, China and Japan and which began in 2003.
South Korean newspapers said Seoul is considering delaying the shipment of crucial bilateral rice aid to the North until it takes action.
The top US nuclear negotiator, Christopher Hill, expressed his unhappiness during a visit to Beijing Sunday.
“Needless to say we are not happy that the DPRK (North Korea) has essentially missed this very important deadline,” he told a press conference.
“The ball is in their court.
“China has asked us to be patient for three or four days, that seems like a wise thing to do. It's not for the US to take unilateral actions,” Hill said.
Japan urged speedy progress.
“Although the deadline has passed it is still extremely important for North Korea to take initial action as soon as possible,” warned Noriyuki Shikata, a foreign ministry spokesman, on Sunday.
North Korea tested its first atomic weapon last October, lending urgency to the negotiations.
In February the six reached a deal under which it agreed to disable its programmes in exchange for a million tons of fuel oil or equivalent aid, plus security and diplomatic benefits.
Under the first phase it was supposed by April 14 to have shut down and sealed its Yongbyon reactor, which produces the raw material to make plutonium for nuclear weapons. UN atomic inspectors were to have witnessed the shutdown.
But the deadline slipped due to the cash row.
South Korea's Foreign Minister Song Min-Soon said last week the issue may be wider than just the Macau accounts.
“I think North Korea finds it necessary that it should be able to freely dispose of the money to its own liking, and upon withdrawing the money it should be able to enter the normal international financial network and engage in normal transactions,” he said.
The US decision in 2005 to blacklist the Macau bank for handling allegedly suspect funds prompted banks elsewhere in Asia to cut financial ties with the North — creating problems with even its legitimate funds.
