Chun Yung-woo, South Korea's chief nuclear envoy, said conditions have improved for a resolution of the financial dispute following recent talks between foreign ministers of South Korea and Russia and their top nuclear envoys, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

Chun said before departing that he will "discuss ways on a final resolution" on the dispute with his U.S. counterpart Christopher Hill, according to Yonhap.

North Korea has refused to move on a February pledge to shut down its nuclear reactor until it receives US$25 million (€18.4 million) in funds that were frozen in a Macau bank for its alleged complicity in money laundering by Pyongyang. The money has been freed for release but North Korea has not withdrawn it, apparently seeking to prove the funds are now clean by receiving them through an electronic bank transfer.

But other banks apparently have balked at touching the funds, which the U.S. alleged were tied to money laundering and counterfeiting by North Korea, throwing the disarmament process into limbo for months.

The South Korean envoy's trip that runs through Friday comes amid media reports that Russia has accepted a U.S. request that a Russian bank accept the North Korean funds via a U.S. financial institution before they are moved to North Korea.

To carry out the international money transfers, the U.S. is expected to temporarily suspend its rules banning American banks from dealing with the Macau-based Banco Delta Asia, Yonhap reported Sunday.

Chun declined to comment earlier on that report, saying only that South Korea, the U.S. and their regional partners are seeking ways to resolve the financial dispute in a way that "poses no legal problems and all parties can accept."

Also Monday, North Korea slammed the United States for criticizing its human rights conditions, accusing Washington of attempting to use the nuclear talks as a means to topple the communist regime.

"The U.S. is trying to shift the blame for the delay in the denuclearization process to us while attempting to make six-party talks a replica of the Helsinki process that melted down the former Soviet Union and eastern European communist nations," the North's official Korean Central News Agency said in a commentary.

The Helsinki process refers to a security mechanism in the 1970s that brought together 35 European countries, the U.S. and Canada and culminated with the signing of the 1975 Helsinki Accord. The accord was seen as the first recognition that human rights were fundamental to the conduct of international relations.

KCNA was disputing a recent State Department report that said Pyongyang has done nothing in the past year to improve an abysmal human rights record.

Subscribe to The China Post and save.  Click hereSharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Enter your comments - 800 characters max

Receive China Post promos

Respond to this email