Pyongyang receives the Macao funds, nuclear shut down is awaited
Seoul (AsiaNews) – The 25 million dollars belonging to the North Korean government but frozen in a Macao bank by Washington have been transferred to Pyongyang: thus ending four months of incredible diplomatic tension which put North Korean denuclearization at risk.
Macao officials confirmed the transfer: the money has passed from Macao’s Financial Authority to the US Federal Reserve, who forwarded them to the Russian central bank. In turn the bank opened an account for the North Korean government in a small Russian bank.
Francis Tam Pak-Yuen, Macau's secretary of economy and finance, said “more than US million of the funds have arrived in Pyongyang”. An anonymous North Korean source adds: “North Korea is eagerly awaiting receipt of these funds. It wants to show that it is committed to progress on the six-party agreement, and an announcement will be made soon”.
The issue of the funds arose during the February’s emergency session of six nation talks on nuclear disarmament called by Beijing, after Pyongyang announced it had successfully carried out its first atomic test.
In exchange for shutting down its reactors, Kim Jong-il’s Stalinist regime had demanded and obtained 50 thousands tones of humanitarian aid in compensation.
The regime also pledged to provide a complete inventory of the plutonium in its possession, but in order to provide the list it claimed it needed to be provided with an energy supply the equivalent of one million tonnes of combustibles. This donation allowed the country to maintain operative its industry and programmed missile sales to Syria, Lebanon and Iran, on of the country’s most profitable trade deals.
Despite this agreement, Pyongyang has frequently postponed the closure of its nuclear weapons plants, describing the transfer of the 25 million dollars frozen in Macao by the US a san “non-negotiable condition”.
Now, comments one South Korean diplomat, “there are no excuses left: let’s just hope that the regime keeps its word and once and for all puts an end to the threat of atomic war”.
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