North Korea blames stalled talks on US money curbs

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

BEIJING, Dec 22 (Reuters) North Korea said today it refuses to discuss the possible scrapping of its nuclear weapons programme until Washington drops its ''hostile policy'' and ends financial curbs.

Speaking in Beijing after a week of six-country talks on the nuclear issue, North Korean envoy Kim Kye-gwan blamed the United States for a failure to make any progress.

''The United States has been unable to come to a decision to lift its sanctions and give up its hostile policy against us,'' Kim told a news conference after the talks ended between the United States, the two Koreas, Japan, Russia and host China.

Other envoys had wanted to focus on a September 2005 agreement that offered the North aid and security guarantees in return for disarmament, but Pyongyang remained preoccupied with getting US financial curbs against it lifted.

North Korea spent most of the week talking about the US freeze on its accounts at Macau's Banco Delta Asia, which Washington accuses of complicity in Pyongyang's alleged money-laundering and dollar counterfeiting.

Those US curbs, imposed at the end of 2005, kept North Korea away from the six-party negotiations for more than a year. Pyongyang has been emboldened by its nuclear test on October 9, a move that drew international condemnation and UN sanctions.

Washington wanted the North to take concrete steps towards dismantling its atomic programmes before agreeing to extend aid and security guarantees. It insisted that the financial curbs be handled separately from the six-party process.

Two days of talks between US Treasury officials and North Korean banking officials ended without agreement this week, although they could resume again in January in New York.

''The United States is now jointly undertaking dialogue and pressure, carrots and sticks. And we are standing against them with dialogue and shields,'' Kim told the news conference.

REUTERS SP KN1731

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