BDA Issue is Taken Care of Say South Korea, U.S.

The $25 million in North Korean assets at the Macau-based Banco Delta Asia (BDA) are to be released early this week and handed over to Pyongyang.

A high-ranking government official said on March 18, “There are no further points of dispute left regarding the issue of unfreezing the North’s BDA account. There is nothing that Pyongyang will come up against. This problem will be taken care of.”

Christopher Hill, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, also said, “I don`t believe we will have any problems with the BDA issue.”

As Pyongyang’s demands have been accepted, it is expected that the North will take measures to shut down and seal its nuclear facilities by April 13, following the agreements reached at the six-party talks on February 13.

It has been reported that Washington and Beijing have recently discussed solutions to the BDA problem and the U.S. agreed to no longer rise up this issue, under the condition that China merges BDA with another bank, holding it responsible for hosting Pyongyang’s illegal funds.

Delegations of state engaged in six-way talks convened in Beijing on March 18 and held the second day of a working group meeting on denuclearization. Various issues have been discussed: how Pyongyang should declare all of its nuclear programs, including its highly enriched uranium (HEU) program, which is the next step after the shutdown and sealing of its nuclear facilities; how to set the specific procedures and timeline for the disablement of nuclear facilities; and how to confirm the way Pyongyang has used imported equipment required for enriching uranium, such as centrifugal separators.

The states that took part in the talks reached a conclusion to designate five facilities—namely the 5MW reactor, the nuclear reprocessing facility, the fuel rods fabrication facility and another 50MW reactor under construction in Yongbyon, and the 200MW reactor under construction in Taechon—as establishments to be shut down and sealed.

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