US strikes hopeful note on NKorea stalemate

Manila, May 25: Washington hopes North Korea will meet a commitment to shut down its nuclear facilities this month after it has received funds still frozen in a Macau bank, US envoy Christopher Hill said today.

"I do believe the DPRK (North Korea) continues to signal to us privately and publicly, and most recently last night, that as soon as the banking matter is resolved, they will move quickly to implement their part of the deal," Hill told reporters in Manila.

"I am expecting it very soon, I expected that last month and hopefully we can get that done this month," said Hill, the chief US negotiator in talks on dismantling North Korea's nuclear programme.

Hill's comments signalled a softer line than earlier in the week when he said Pyongyang should not wait for the money to arrive before shutting down its Soviet-era reactor.

Hill was in Manila for preparatory meetings for an August summit of Asia's largest security bloc, the 26-member ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), in the Philippine capital. He flies to Indonesia this evening.

In closed-door meetings between diplomats, North Korean officials defended their attempts to build an arsenal of nuclear weapons and described the United States, South Korea and Japan, as an "alliance of war".

Washington pushed Asian countries to adopt a tough non-proliferation stance at the ARF meeting on August 2.

North Korea agreed to shut down its reactor at six-country nuclear talks in February but insisted it would not move until it received 25 million dollar frozen at Macau's Banco Delta Asia.

North Korea missed a mid-April deadline to begin the shutdown because the transfer was held up.

Washington and others subsequently demanded that Pyongyang live up to promises it made at the talks with South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

Hill said there was still no plan to resume the six-party talks until after the two sides had resolved 'this roadblock'. He added that he hoped the banking issue would be resolved before the end of the month.

Reuters

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