vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #575 / Business / Reading article...

Khabarovsk-based Dalcombank on Monday transferred to the North Korean Foreign Trade Bank the funds which were previously frozen in Banco Delta Asia in Macau and expressed hope that the deal would propel the stalled agreement on North Korea’s nuclear disarmament.

This February North Korea signed an agreement with the U.S., South Korea, Russia, China and Japan to close its Yongbyon reactor, the source of its weapons-grade plutonium fuel, in exchange for energy assistance. However, the April 14 deadline was missed due to holdups in getting $25 million frozen in Macau's Banco Delta Asia SARL, after the U.S. Treasury blacklisted the bank and accused it of laundering money for the communist state.

The obstacle to implementing a deal to disable Pyongyang's program appeared to have been removed when Russia suggested assistance in transferring funds from Macau to North Korea.

“Dalcombank agreed to become an intermediate to transfer the funds to North Korea after it had received an offer from Russian Central bank to participate in the deal,” a statement on the bank’s official site www.dalcombank.ru said Monday.

The transaction was preceded by high-level negotiations that included Russia's Foreign Ministry, Finance Ministry and the Bank of Russia and included an exchange of notes with the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, which detailed the U.S. government's obligation not to take any legal steps against any of the Russian sides.

As of Monday “the problem of the funds' movement has been fully resolved,” Dalcombank’s statement said.

North Korea said the money would be used to ‘enhance the people's welfare and for humanitarian purposes,’ the North Korean Foreign Ministry was cited as saying by the official Korea Central News Agency on Monday.

“Now that the issue of de-freezing the funds has been settled, the DPRK, too, will start implementing the February 13 agreement on the principle of ‘action for action,’” the agency reported at http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm.

The delegation from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to arrive in North Korea on Tuesday to inspect the nuclear facility in Yongbyon and discuss its shutdown.