| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
advertisement | ||
Friday May 18, 2:25 AMUS bank says asked to solve North Korea bank issueWASHINGTON, May 17 (Reuters) - U.S.-based bank Wachovia Corp. said on Thursday it had been asked by the U.S. State Department to help with the transfer of $25 million in tainted funds that has delayed a shutdown of North Korea's nuclear complex.North Korea has demanded the transfer of the funds, blocked for 20 months in a Banco Delta Asia account in Macau, as a condition for shutting down its nuclear facilities under a Feb. 13, six-country disarmament deal. Although Washington agreed to unfreeze the funds, foreign banks have so far refused to accept the money, fearing they too would be tainted and cut off from the U.S. financial system. The United States has been searching for a bank to help end the impasse, and Wachovia said it was asked "on a non-profit basis" to process the interbank transfer. "We have agreed to consider this request and our discussions with various government officials are continuing," said a statement from the bank, which is based in Charlotte, North Carolina. "We take any request for assistance from our government seriously and endeavor to cooperate wherever possible," added the statement. North Korea said on Tuesday that it may soon receive the frozen funds and that a process was under way to wire the money to a North Korean bank account in a third country. Washington said weeks ago that the money, frozen at its request due to suspected links to illicit activity by Pyongyang, had been released and was awaiting collection. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack declined to provide details about Wachovia's possible involvement in trying to resolve the issue or whether the department had approached other U.S. banks. "I'm not going to comment on something that is yet to be resolved," McCormack told reporters. "We all want to see the BDA (Banco Delta Asia) issue resolved, obviously resolved within the laws and regulations of the United States as well as the international financial system," he added. MOMENTUM FOR TALKS McCormack said the goal was to get back to the six-party talks to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula rather than be tied down trying to resolve the problem with the tainted funds. "It's one that we hope we can get back to and impart some more momentum to those discussions," he said. North Korea missed a mid-April deadline to begin the shutdown, leading Washington and others to demand that Pyongyang live up to promises it made at the talks with South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States. Wachovia did not provide any specific details of its involvement but made clear it had fully complied with U.S. sanctions against North Korea and would not agree to any request without appropriate approval from regulators. |
|||
|
Copyright © 2005 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of Reuters Limited
|