Russia acting to help North Korea funds issue: envoy http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSSEO8093420070605
Tue Jun 5, 2007
By Jack Kim
SEOUL (Reuters) - Russia is working with Washington to use one of its banks as an intermediary for the transfer of North Korean funds at the centre of a stalemate over Pyongyang's nuclear arms program, its chief nuclear envoy said on Tuesday.
North Korea wants to recover $25 million stuck at Macau's Banco Delta Asia (BDA), which Washington previously designated as a primary money laundering concern, through the international banking system before implementing a nuclear disarmament deal.
"We will have to explore the opportunity of transfer of the money to one of Russian banks," Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov told Reuters on the sidelines of an Asian foreign ministers' meeting in Seoul.
"We are doing that right now. It will take some time and consultations with the Americans," he added.
North Korea agreed on February 13 to begin work to scrap its nuclear weapons program but has demanded the once-frozen funds in Macau be transferred first.
Losyukov represents Russia at the six-way talks with South and North Korea, Japan, the United States and China.
The $25 million at BDA was blocked after the United States blacklisted the bank, accusing it of laundering illicit funds for the secretive communist state. It has since lifted the measure.
But because of the actions by the U.S. Treasury Department on grounds that the funds are tainted, reputable institutions, including the Bank of China and at least one U.S. bank, have refused to handle the transaction.
Russia is in a position to help because North Korea has accounts with several of its banks, Losyukov said. "The Macau bank can transfer that money directly to some Russian bank or do it through a chain of transactions. It doesn't matter."
But it would require a U.S. guarantee that the bank's reputation would not be affected by handling the North Korean cash, he said, "in written form."
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