CHINA: U.S. envoy Christopher Hill, says North Korea denuclearisation on track.

The U.S. envoy to six-party nuclear talks said North Korea was on track to fulfill its side of a breakthrough disarmament accord by shutting down its main atomic facility next month. U.S. envoy Christopher Hill said on Sunday (March 18) North Korea was on track in its steps towards shutting down the Yongbyon nuclear facility next month. Hill added he was confident that a new round of the talks opening on Monday (March 19) could move past a spat over North Korea's frozen bank accounts and concentrate on pushing forward the Feb. 13 deal. Under the terms of the accord reached at the talks that group the two Koreas, the United States, host China, Japan and Russia, North Korea agreed to shutt down its Yongbyon reactor and readmit International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors within 60 days. "Denuclearisation, I think there was a positive assessment of it, I think everybody was very positive about the fact that Mr Elbaradei was able to visit Pyongyang and the DPRK (North Korea) spokesman also made very clear that they have begun their tasks for the purpose of denuclearisation," Hill told reporters during a briefing. "So I think we are on schedule for the shutdown of the (nuclear) facilities and the monitoring by IAEA. So I am pleased that we are moving on that," Hill added. Hill said the parties also needed to work out a finalised timetable for the next phases towards denuclerisation in North Korea. "We are not done until we get full denuclearisation, I mean we are not done until the September statement is fully realised. So we are going to need a roadmap ahead. I think we are going to have to discuss that. I think the DPRK (North Korea) wanted to keep the discussions pretty much focused on the 60 day obligations, but we need to continue to go forward and figure out how many different phases this is going to take." Hill also said the North Koreans now had a better understanding of the U.S. position on Macau's Banco Delta Asia (BDA), which the U.S. Treasury Department accused of harbouring illegal North Korean earnings. The U.S. Treasury on Wednesday (March 14) formally banned U.S. banks doing business with BDA. This formal ban means Macau authorities can now step in and conduct its own investigation and eventually unfreeze North Korean accounts found to be above board. North Korea's chief envoy to the talks, Kim Kye-gwan, said on Saturday that his country would not shut down Yongbyon until the accounts were unfrozen. "They (North Korea) wanted to get details of the BDA settlement and I think that was important that we had some meetings with them yesterday and today. And so as I have said before, I think we have gotten past the BDA issue and that will not be an impediment to our six-party process,' Hill said. Hill said he expected an announcement "very soon" concerning the fate of some $24 million in frozen North Korean accounts, and China's Xinhua news agency quoted Chinese State Councillor Tang Jiaxuan as saying North Korea and the United States has worked out a resolution. Hill gave working group meetings over the weekend on denculearisation a "positive assessment" and said the six-party talks would discuss progress in all five of the working groups established under the Feb. 13 agreement.

ITN Source | March 18, 2007

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