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WASHINGTON : The US-based Wachovia bank said Thursday it was considering a State Department request to oversee the transfer of frozen funds back to North Korea.
The move, if approved, could resolve a long-running financial dispute over 25 million dollars in reportedly tainted funds frozen in an Asian bank that has blocked progress on North Korea's pledge to start shutting down its nuclear program.
"Because of our international expertise, we have been asked, on a non-profit basis, by the US State Department to help them process an interbank transfer of funds held at other banks, which are the subject of negotiations with North Korea," Christy Phillips-Brown, spokeswoman for Wachovia Corporation, said in a statement to AFP.
"We have agreed to consider this request and our discussions with various government officials are continuing," she said.
Wachovia is headquartered in the southeastern state of North Carolina.
The funds were frozen in a Macau bank, Banco Delta Asia (BDA), at US instigation in September 2005 on suspicion they were the proceeds of money-laundering and counterfeiting.
North Korea cited the BDA dispute as a reason to boycott the six-nation talks for more than a year, during which it tested an atomic bomb.
In an attempt to move the nuclear talks forward, Washington announced in March that the funds had been unfrozen. But foreign banks have since been unwilling to handle cash seen as tainted.
Wachovia did not say how any transfer would be handled.
"We take any request for assistance from our government seriously and endeavor to cooperate whenever possible," Phillips-Brown said.
The bank would not agree to any request "without appropriate approvals from our regulators," she said.
North Korea's foreign ministry this week promised to start shutting down atomic plants under UN supervision as soon as the funds are transferred under a February 2007 accord reached at the six-nation talks.
- AFP /ls
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