In the latest diplomacy to kickstart the troubled February 13 aid-for-disarmament deal, Japan and South Korea on Thursday issued a joint call for the communist state to live up to its promises.

North Korea has refused to comply with its pledges to shut down a nuclear reactor by April 14 due to a long-running dispute over 25 million dollars stuck at a bank account in the Chinese territory of Macau.

Japan, which has tense relations with North Korea, threatened new sanctions unless Pyongyang meets its commitments soon.

"We will soon, maybe within a week or so, talk with the United States about how we have had enough," Foreign Minister Taro Aso told a lower house panel Wednesday.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that Japan "won't stay patient forever."

"If North Korea does not carry out what it had promised, we will have to think about a variety of options," Abe told reporters late Wednesday.

Japan has already imposed sweeping sanctions against North Korea including a ban on all imports. Advocates of stronger action have suggested measures such as banning exports and blacklisting ships that travel to the communist state.

But in a potential move to resolve the crisis, Japan's Kyodo News and The Washington Times said the US was considering letting an American bank handle the money at Macau's Banco Delta Asia.

Such a move would go against Washington's usual insistence on isolating states or groups it considers terrorists from the banking system.

Kyodo News, citing anonymous sources in Washington, said the US government hoped to resolve the row within a few days.

If the deal is approved, the Macau bank would transfer the cash to a US bank which would in turn send it to a third country, Kyodo News said.

Asked whether the United States would make an exception to let a US bank handle the money, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said it was up to the Treasury Department.

"It's a heck of a lot more complicated than anybody would have ever thought," McCormack said of unfreezing the money.

"Everybody wants to see this transaction completed, over and done with, so that we can move on."

The US froze the funds in 2005, saying they were proceeds of money laundering and counterfeiting. In an attempt to move the nuclear pact forward, Washington announced in March that the funds had been unfrozen.

But foreign banks are unwilling to handle the suspicious cash for fear of sullying their own reputations.

North Korea cited the dispute as a reason to boycott six-nation talks for more than a year, during which it tested an atomic bomb.

The six nations in the talks are the two Koreas and North Korea's main ally China, along with Japan, Russia and the United States.

US President George W. Bush and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao agreed in a telephone call Wednesday "on the need for North Korea to move forward in implementing its obligations under the February 13 agreement," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

Japan and South Korea also said after security talks Thursday in Tokyo that North Korea "needs to take initial measures as soon as possible."

Japan has championed a tough line against North Korea, in part due to an emotionally charged row over Pyongyang's past abductions of Japanese. South Korea has supported reconciliation with the communist North.

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