BEIJING - North Korea will not shut its nuclear facility at Yongbyon until it gets back all its money frozen in a Macau bank by US sanctions, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan said on Saturday.| This really has been the shoe that pinched the most, hasn't it? |
| It's starting to raise a blister... |
US financial sanctions against the BDA in Macau have been a key obstacle to progress in the six-party talks involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia. In a decision taken Wednesday, the US Treasury Department said it had finished its investigation, which it said would free up the Banco Delta Asia to release legally held North Korean funds, estimated to be in the millions.
But at the same time, it barred any direct or indirect access to by the US financial system to the Macau bank. It was not clear how the continued isolation from the US banking system had changed anything for the Macau bank or would make the unfreezing of the funds possible.