North Korea prepares second nuclear test
Pastor Dale Morgan
Thursday February 1, 4:21 AM Reuters
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North Korea prepares second nuclear test*
By Benjamin Kang Lim
BEIJING (Reuters) - North Korea will feel compelled to announce plans
for another nuclear test if a financial row with Washington is not
settled, a source said on Wednesday as the latest talks wound up with no
signs of a breakthrough.
U.S. Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Daniel Glaser, after meeting
North Korean officials in Beijing on the financial dispute, described
discussions as "painstaking."
The U.S. Treasury has accused North Korea of using Macau's Banco Delta
Asia to launder earnings from counterfeit U.S. dollars and drug trafficking.
But a source close to the North Korean government said Pyongyang felt
Washington lacked evidence of wrongdoing and wanted a quick solution.
North Korea was likely to express its frustration when it comes to
six-party talks, aimed at dismantling its nuclear programmes, scheduled
for February 8 in Beijing, the source said.
"If the United States does not resolve it, North Korea will have no
choice but to announce at the six-party talks that it plans to conduct
another test," the source told Reuters after being briefed by a North
Korean official.
The last session of talks grouping the two Koreas, the United States,
Japan, Russia and host China was held in December -- two months after
Pyongyang dramatically raised the stakes by holding its first nuclear
test. It yielded no breakthrough.
The December session snagged over Pyongyang's complaints about the U.S.
financial crackdown that led to Macau freezing $24 million in North
Korean accounts.
Glaser told reporters he was sure North Korea was up to no good at the
Macau bank. "We've been vindicated with respect to our concerns," he said.
But he said the latest talks, following negotiations in December, had
yielded hopes of a settlement. The negotiators had discussed almost 50
account holders in the Macau bank, he said.
"We got some information that was very helpful to us," Glaser said,
adding there was hope "to start moving forward and trying to bring some
resolution to this matter."
There would be more financial talks, but no date has been set, Glaser
said, adding that U.S. concerns went well beyond the Macau bank.
EFFORT REQUIRED
China's envoy to the six-party talks, Wu Dawei, told reporters that the
next session could be relatively short, apparently placing an onus on
negotiators, including North Korea's, to reach a deal this time.
"I hope the meeting can complete its talks in three to four days," Wu
said. The success of the talks, he said, "requires efforts of all parties."
But U.S. officials have held out little hope of a quick resolution to
the financial dispute, and Russia and South Korea also cautioned against
expectations of a breakthrough.
"I think there is almost no chance of finding concrete, significant
agreements during these talks," Russia's Alexander Losyukov, a deputy
foreign minister, told Interfax news agency.
The Beijing-based source described the U.S. financial curbs as a "huge
insult" to a sovereign country.
"If the United States does not resolve it, North Korea would be a
'sinner' taking part in the six-party talks ... North Korea would have
no face and could not be on equal footing with the other parties at the
six-party talks.
"The United States has no evidence, just like it had no evidence Iraq
had weapons of mass destruction," the source said.
In Washington, the U.S. State Department said the U.S. view was that the
financial dispute was separate from the six-way talks. "The financial
discussions are not being held as part of six party talks and they are
not related to issues of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,"
spokesman Tom Casey told reporters.
The North Korean Embassy in Beijing declined to comment. The Chinese
Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment.
(Additional reporting by Chris Buckley in Beijing, Jack Kim in Seoul,
George Nishiyama in Tokyo and Maria Golovnina in Moscow)