New round of six-party N-talks begins

With North Korea and the United States agreeing on the issue of financial sanctions, chief negotiators to the six-party talks on Monday commenced with the sixth round of parleys on dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear programme.

US Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Daniel Glaser said all the North Korean funds at a Macao-based bank would be transferred to a Bank of China account in Beijing to be used for education and humanitarian purposes in North Korea.

Christopher Hill, the top US negotiator at the six-nation talks, told reporters the two sides had agreed on Banco Delta Asia's return of all the North Korean deposits.

The US promised to resolve the issue by mid-March as part of the February 13 landmark agreement on North Korea's nuclear disarmament.

In 2005, The US blacklisted the BDA bank on allegations that the funds, amounting to some 25 million US dollars were connected to North Korean money-laundering and counterfeiting operations.

On Saturday, North Korea's nuclear envoy Kim Kye-gwan said Pyongyang would not shut down its main nuclear reactor until all of the frozen funds were released.

Meanwhile, the chief negotiators of North Korea, South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia met at the Diaoyutai State Guest House for the first day of the sixth round of six-party talks, focusing on implementing initial steps to denuclearise the Korean Peninsula.

Prior to the official opening ceremony of the talks, the chief negotiators held a meeting among themselves.

North Korea agreed to give full declaration of its nuclear programmes and disable all its nuclear facilities within the initial 60-day phase, according to the joint statement reached at the end of last round of six-party talks here on February 13.

During the last round of six-party talks, the meeting reached consensus on the initial steps to implement the joint statement of September 19, 2005 in which North Korea agreed to dismantle its nuclear programmes in return for aid and energy supplies.