North Sends Finance Expert to Talks

The president of Chosun Trade Bank, Oh Kwang Chul (47), will attend a practical affairs meeting of Banco Delta Asia, which will be held in Beijing, China starting December 19, as a chief delegate of North Korea. It has drawn everyone’s attention to why North Korea has named a finance expert as the head of the delegation to the BDA meeting, instead of deputy delegate of six-party talks Lee Keun (60), who had been responsible for the negotiation with the U.S. over the issue of frozen bank accounts at Macao-based Banco Delta Asia.

President Oh was born in 1959 and was elected as a representative to the 11th First People Assembly in 2003. The First People Assembly can be understood as South Korea’s National Assembly.

Some say that the reason why North Korea has put a finance expert in the front line of negotiation is to deny suspicion that the bank account held in BDA was actually a slush fund for Kim Jong Il. A government official has said, “The worst scenario is that N.K. would stress the transparency of the fund in question through finance experts.”

taewon_ha@donga.com