Solution to Address BDA Problem

Officials from both the Korean and the U.S. governments said that they have found a way to resolve the issue of frozen assets of North Korea in Banco Delta Asia (BDA). According to the solution, the Federal Reserve will transfer North Korea’s funds to its account in Far East Commercial Bank via Russia’s central bank after receiving the funds from the BDA. North Korea was notified of this proposal.

A diplomatic source from Washington said that, “This solution will be carried out when Pyongyang specifies the amount of money to be transferred. We informed North Korea of this measure, but we didn’t get answers yet from North Korea about whether it is satisfied with this measure or whether it considers the solution a return to international financial system, which it has demanded.”

Song Min-soon, South Korean Foreign Minister, explained on June 13 that, “We are in the stage of making a final decision on the matter based on results from communications among all nations involved,” hinting that North Korea is pleased with this solution.

In the meantime, the Japanese Asahi Shimbun reported that a BDA representative said that North Korea withdrew some of its frozen 25 million dollars from the bank, which was deposited in several accounts, in one account after exchanging it.

A senior government official who visited Washington said that, “I got advice from U.S. private-sector experts involved in the “Nunn-Lugar Program,” which was designed to dismantle nuclear weapons of the former Soviet Union possessed by the Ukraine.”

srkim@donga.com weappon@donga.com