N. Korea Boycotts Talks Over Funny Money Proceeds

[Talks stall; See updates below]

BEIJING – International talks on North Korea’s nuclear program stalled again Tuesday, with Pyongyang refusing to take part until it receives $25 million from a bank blacklisted by the United States, Japan’s chief envoy said.

Kenichiro Sasae said a meeting scheduled for Tuesday afternoon between the chief delegates of the six nations involved in the disarmament talks was canceled because Pyongyang refused to attend.

“There was no progress at all today,” Sasae said. “China as chairman (of the talks) urged North Korea to come to the table but they would not come.”  [AP, Mary Yamaguchi]

What isn’t clear from the report is whether North Korea objects to the compromise solution offered by the U.S. side, under which Macanese authorities were to transfer all  $25 million — including laundered proceeds of  drug dealing and counterfeiting —  into an account to be used for humanitarian and educational purposes.  That account was to be at the Bank of China.

“According to China, North Korea said they will not come to join further discussions until they confirm that their money got into their bank account in China,” Sasae said. 

Chris Hill, the U.S. delegate,  claims that Kim Kye-Gwan, the North Korean  delegate, agreed to this deal, but the one nobody has heard from yet is His Porcine Majesty, Kim Jong Il.  It may be that Delegate Kim is stalling until he gets approval from Tyrant Kim.

As I pointed out previously, simply giving the North Koreans back all that money would have violated U.N. Security Council  Resolution 1718, which requires nations to freeze assets they suspect to have proliferation connections.  It also requires them to “ensure” that funds they provide to North Korea won’t be used for proliferation, WMD programs, arms purchases, “luxury goods,” and other prohibited purposes. 

I’m ambivalent about that compromise, but under the present circumstances, it’s probably the best available option.  Having come this far, we  shouldn’t set ourselves up  as the ones who wrecked this deal, but on the other hand, we can’t weaken a U.N. resolution that we wrote and lobbied for just a few months ago, and which we’ll have to aggressively enforce when these talks fail.  And while I have serious doubts about how North Korea will actually spend the $25 million, it’s not that much money, and under the circumstances, preserving notional 1718  compliance probably serves our primary interest.  Letting the fastidious inspection of this small sum become the main issue doesn’t.  It doesn’t mean I’d have signed this deal to begin with; I’m simply recognizing the practicalities as they exist now.  I prefer to have these talks fail over what North Korea — not the United States — refuses to do or discuss.

That’s especially so when Chris Hill’s statements suggest that he wants to move on to a serious discussion of North Korea’s highly enriched uranium, one of the brass-tacks issues that I’m pleasantly surprised NOT to see buried in a low-level working group.  Hill has also offered supportive words for Japan’s demand to get its kidnapped citizens back. 

Update:   I would call these “conflicting accounts:”

“North Korea and the United States have struck a mutually acceptable means over the Macau BDA issue,” State Councillor Tang Jiaxuan said, according to report from late on Sunday.

U.S. envoy Christopher Hill said on Sunday he was confident the North Koreans now better understood the U.S. bank decision.

But a Japanese diplomat who attended working group talks on Sunday said the North was not satisfied with the U.S. decision on the Macau accounts. “North Korea insisted that the United States had not done what it should on BDA,” the diplomat said.  [Reuters]

Update 2:   Reuters  reports that  the talks are  “stalled,” and  that the diplos are all flying home: [?]

Six-party talks aimed at ending Pyongyang’s nuclear threat stalled unexpectedly on Tuesday, hampered by a row over North Korean funds frozen in a tiny Macau bank ….

… all of which is pretty incongruous with the happy talk from the diplos. 

North Korean delegate Kim Kye-gwan was also upbeat about the result. “It’s going to go well,” he told a South Korean envoy. “We’re going to have a good dream tonight.”

Thanks for that image.  I  guess  they’re staying over in Beijing tonight. 

Update 3:   All in all, I think my predicted chronology is holding up reasonably well so far.