The US Treasury will free up the accounts belonging to North Korea at Macao's Banco Delta Asia, a senior Treasury official said Tuesday.
"I think we're at the point now where we do have enough information and have had enough discussions that we can begin taking steps to resolve the Banco Delta Asia matter," said Daniel Glaser, the Treasury's deputy assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes, speaking at a symposium.
"It's never been our position that accounts in which there's no relation to illicit activity should be held indefinitely. That's one of the things that we're going to be working towards as we bring this matter to resolution," Glaser said.
Meanwhile, Christopher Hill, chief US negotiator at the six-party talks, announced that the US would address lowering financial sanctions against North Korea within 30 days in Beijing.
"We have some ideas about how to proceed with that," Hill told reporters at his hotel after the six-party talks which ended Tuesday with a joint document.
The United States previously accused North Korea of using Banco Delta Asia for money laundering purposes and directly imposed financial sanctions on North Korea in 2005.
These sanctions were one of the crucial areas of contention that stalled the talks aimed at denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.
Hill will leave Beijing tomorrow morning and has invited, Kim Kye-Gwan, the head of the North Korea delegation to the six-party talks, to come to New York for follow-up meetings on the normalization of relations.
(Xinhua News Agency February 14, 2007)
