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BEIJING: North Korea will not shut down its nuclear facilities until the United States releases all funds frozen in a Macau bank, the communist state's chief nuclear negotiator said Saturday.
"If the United States does not remove all of its restriction on our funds at Banco Delta Asia (BDA), we cannot shut down our nuclear facilities at Yongbyon," Kim Kye-gwan told reporters on arrival in Beijing.
Kim's comments were North Korea's first reaction to the US Treasury's announcement on Wednesday that it had cleared the way for the release of about 25 million dollars of North Korean funds frozen in the Macau-based BDA.
In its ruling, the US Treasury barred US banks from dealing with BDA, an institution it said had laundered money for reclusive North Korea.
But the move allowed Macau authorities to decide what to do with the cash after the bank was left in receivership.
Asked if North Korea would stop some of the operations in Yongbyon if only part of the frozen funds were released, Kim said: "(In that case) operations won't stop at all," reported South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
As to a visit to North Korea by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, Kim said: "The entry by IAEA staff will come only after Yongbyon is shut down. There would be no reason for them to come as long as Yongbyon is not shut down."
A pro-Pyongyang newspaper on Friday had hailed US moves to resolve financial sanctions against North Korea as a "landmark event," raising hopes for progress in long-running disarmament talks.
And the chief US envoy on North Korea, Christopher Hill, insisted on Friday that the United States had effectively ended the dispute with its sanctions-busting strategy.
"I think they (the North Koreans) want assurances that the financial issue is resolved," Hill told reporters.
"Frankly I think it has been resolved. We have already resolved it pursuant to our obligations."
Kim and Hill are in Beijing for Monday's start of the next round of six-party negotiations, which group the two Koreas, China, the United States, Russia and Japan.
Hill had said he would meet Kim soon after Kim's arrival on Saturday morning.
UN atomic chief Mohamed ElBaradei said on Friday that he hoped an April 13 deadline could be met for starting to dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons programme.
ElBaradei told reporters on returning to Vienna after visits to Pyongyang and Beijing that he thought the North Koreans "still would like to see that deadline respected and we still hope to do it by April 13."
ElBaradei, director general of the IAEA, said: "If the financial sanctions are over, then we expect the DPRK (North Korea) to invite us to work out the modalities of monitoring and verification" of North Korea's deal to close and seal its Yongbyon plutonium-producing reactor by April 13.
That would be 60 days after the six-party agreement reached in Beijing on February 13. – AFP/ir
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