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North Korea Protests South Korean Computer Wargames As Banking Crisis Follows Old Patterns
Seoul (AFP) May 28, 2007 North Korea on Monday rebuked the South over its military drills as Seoul launched a computer simulation war game on the eve of high-level rapprochement talks with Pyongyang. "North-targeted ceaseless joint military exercises with foreign forces and (an) arms buildup are going on in South Korea," the North's state newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said in an editorial. "Unless these moves of the war-like forces at home and abroad are frustrated, the peace of the country will be disturbed and Koreans will suffer from the disaster of a nuclear war to be started by foreign forces." The protest editorial came after South Korean troops staged computer simulation war games to test their war-fighting capacity. The eight-day "Taegeuk" exercise, which has been held annually since 1995, involves no deployment of troops or equipment, South Korean officials said. The South also stages a much larger annual military exercise with its US ally. The North describes the drills as preparation for a pre-emptive strike and has called for them to be halted. Taegeuk comes at a sensitive time as the two Koreas hold four-day ministerial talks in Seoul from Tuesday. The North test-launched a short-range missile on Friday, but Seoul described the move as part of routine drills which would not disrupt the ministerial meeting. The South promised at the last ministerial talks in March to resume annual food aid after the North begins honouring a February multinational agreement to scrap its nuclear programmes. The first shipment of an annual total of 400,000 tons of rice worth 170 million dollars was to have been made in late May. But South Korea postponed the shipment until Pyongyang makes a start on shutting down its Yongbyon reactor. North Korea made the shutdown conditional on settlement of a dispute over accounts totalling 25 million dollars which have been frozen in a Macau bank since 2005 under US money-laundering and counterfeiting sanctions. The United States lifted the restrictions in March, but the North has had problems arranging a transfer via foreign banks, which are unwilling to touch apparently tainted money.
earlier related report The US offer, made through diplomatic channels, promises the communist North a "tangible commitment" to settling the dispute exactly as Pyongyang desires and as quickly as possible, Yonhap quoted a source as saying. "At present, North Korea has not responded positively to the US offer ... but the United States is likely to continue to explain its position to North Korea through the New York channel," the source was quoted as saying. North Korea has no diplomatic ties with the United States but its mission to the UN headquarters in New York serves as a channel. Seoul's foreign ministry refused to comment on the report. North Korea carried out its first nuclear test last October. It has promised to start shutting down its nuclear reactor in exchange for fuel oil under the first stage of an accord reached at six-nation talks in February. But the North refuses to move until it recovers 25 million dollars in funds that were frozen in Macau's Banco Delta Asia (BDA) after Washington blacklisted the bank in 2005 for allegedly laundering illicit funds. The source told Yonhap: "None of the six-nation talks representatives had expected the BDA issue to drag on like this. It is a very abnormal situation, and North Korea needs to make a bold decision." The United States said it had lifted the restrictions on the accounts in March. But the North has had problems arranging a transfer via a foreign bank since banks are unwilling to touch apparently tainted money. The US-based Wachovia bank said earlier this month it was considering a US State Department request to help process the transfer. But South Korea's DongA Ilbo newspaper said Monday that efforts to use US banks such as Wachovia had come unstuck because of the US Patriot Act, under which the funds were originally frozen. It quoted a diplomatic source as saying that Washington, at a US-China forum last Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington, asked Beijing to help liquidate BDA or let other banks take it over. The paper said China, which has sovereignty over self-governing Macau, had yet to respond. The first phase of the February deal was supposed to have been completed by April 14. US chief nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill said last week the banking issue was one of the most complex matters of his career, but he hoped for a solution within a month.
Source: Agence France-Presse
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