Money impasse

The North Korean reactor will not be shut down until the fall

A meeting of the heads of delegations at the six-party talks on the DPRK nuclear issue with the participation of the two Koreas, China, Russia, the USA and Japan was supposed to take place yesterday in Beijing. However, the head of the North Korean delegation, Kim Kye Gwan, without going into public explanations, simply did not appear in the meeting room. His Japanese counterpart, Kenichiro Sasae, told the press: “China, chairing the negotiations, said that the DPRK will not take part in them until it is convinced that its funds have been transferred from Delta Asia Bank to its account in Beijing.” Let us clarify that we are talking about $25 million frozen at the request of the United States. “China called on the DPRK to sit down at the negotiating table, but it did not,” Mr. Sasae added, giving rise to rumors that Pyongyang would withdraw from the negotiation process.

The head of the Russian delegation, Alexander Losyukov, explained that information about Pyongyang’s refusal to participate in the negotiations “does not correspond to reality.” According to the Russian diplomat, the process “is at a temporary dead end,” but the DPRK delegation did not leave the negotiations and is holding consultations on the sidelines with other delegations, including the Russian one. As an “honest broker,” Russia is trying to make up for the lack of trust in negotiations. But their further course, Mr. Losyukov noted, “depends on the United States” - they “did not fulfill their obligations on time,” and “now they are talking about the obligations of the DPRK.”

The DPRK delegation told Russian representatives that it “does not want to continue substantive negotiations” until the money frozen at the insistence of the United States in September 2005 in a bank in Chinese Macau is transferred to the Bank of China to the account of the North Korean Vneshtorgbank. According to Mr. Losyukov, “the catch is that the United States has unfrozen these accounts, but the money has not been transferred; accordingly, the freezing of North Korean nuclear facilities has been postponed.” The resolution of the account problem was announced the day before yesterday, on the first day of negotiations, by the US Treasury and the head of the American delegation, Christopher Hill.

Alexander Losyukov did not rule out that today, with a “happy development of events,” it will be possible to conclude the round with a discussion of the implementation of the agreements of February 13. Then the DPRK agreed to shut down the Yongbyon reactor within 60 days under IAEA supervision in exchange for energy assistance. Mr. Losyukov proposed to continue work at the expert level on economic assistance to the DPRK and nuclear disarmament. They could clarify the details of North Korea's cooperation with the IAEA on Yongbyon and other facilities. Hill limited himself to a vague phrase about the need to “go through all the milestones of the 60-day process.”

The North Koreans informed the Russians that they do not intend to return to the IAEA or the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty until relations with the United States are normalized. This will complicate the IAEA's monitoring capabilities, since the agency usually works only with its members. According to Alexander Losyukov, “all this can be sorted out, but there is no substantive conversation yet.” The suspension of the reactor and the lifting of trade sanctions on the DPRK promised by the Americans, coupled with its exclusion from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, are possible, the Russian diplomat believes, “if we work actively,” only by the fall of this year. In other words, it will not be possible to fulfill the agreements in 60 days.

“The North Koreans really don’t want to find themselves in a stupid position where, having agreed to negotiations, they hear that their money either forgot to be returned, or that the funds have again become “illegal,” a senior researcher at the Center for Korean Studies at the Institute of Far-Range Research told Vremya Novostey. East of the Russian Academy of Sciences Konstantin Asmolov. Our interlocutor suggested that “the experienced diplomat Hill could have been set up by “hawks” from the US Treasury.” At the same time, the conflict situation that has arisen at the six-party talks should not be dramatized, since “their current round was initially planned as a technical one.”

Alexander SAMOKHOTKIN