South Korea Wants Talks With North Korea On Opening Rail Link

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Photo courtesy AFP.North Korea To Transfer Funds Via Russia, Italy: Reports
Tokyo (AFP) April 30 - North Korea proposes to withdraw its previously frozen funds from a Macau bank through its accounts at financial institutions in Russia and Italy, Japanese press reports said Monday. Delays in the transfer of the funds have hampered progress in six-nation talks involving the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions. The funds, worth 25 million dollars, have not yet been transferred from Banco Delta Asia (BDA) to North Korea, reportedly due to problems finding a bank willing to handle the cash transfer.

The North Korean proposal was made in talks with Macau authorities on Saturday, China's former chief delegate to six-nation talks Wu Dawei told a group of Japanese lawmakers visiting Beijing on Sunday, according to the reports. North Korea said its BDA funds could be transferred in US dollars or euros, the reports said. Wu told the Japanese visitors the BDA problem was "not a political issue at all but a simple technical issue which was no cause for concern," the reports said.

But he could not say how many days it might take to clear up the matter. Under a landmark February 13 agreement, North Korea should have shut down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor in the presence of UN inspectors as the first step in scrapping its nuclear programmes by April 14. But the deadline slipped by due to an unresolved dispute over the BDA funds, frozen since 2005 at US instigation over allegations of money laundering and counterfeiting.

US authorities last month dropped the sanctions and said it was up to the Macau authorities to release the cash.Pyongyang has refused to act until it gets the money back.

by Staff Writers
Seoul (AFP) April 30, 2007
South Korea urged North Korea on Monday to hold military talks this week to prepare for the first test runs of railways across their heavily fortified frontier in half a century. Seoul has suggested that chief delegates to the working-level talks meet Thursday at the truce village of Panmunjom, defence ministry spokesman Song Gi-Hong told AFP.

North Korea has yet to reply to the offer, he added.

The plan to connect the railways across one of the world's most dangerous flashpoints is a flagship project for relations between two nations which have remained technically at war since the 1950-53 conflict.

Following a historic inter-Korean summit in 2000, the two sides completed laying tracks alongside roads that opened in 2005 for limited traffic.

Seoul asked last year that the North's military provide a safety guarantee for the two lines, one from Seoul to Sinuiju on the Korean-Chinese border and the other along the east coast.

But North Korea scrapped trial runs in May last year after demanding that a contested sea border be redrawn off the west coast.

Relations have been improving in recent years despite the North's missile launches and nuclear test last year. Two Seoul-funded joint projects are operating in the North, a tourist resort at Mount Kumgang and an industrial estate at Kaesong.

The two Koreas agreed to conduct the railway test runs on May 17 when they met in April in Pyongyang to discuss joint economic projects. They also agreed to make "positive efforts" to reach a military safety guarantee, the main topic of this week's talks if they go ahead.

At the Pyongyang meeting the South agreed to resume its annual 400,000 tons of rice aid to the impoverished North, but said shipments would be linked to progress on an international agreement for Pyongyang's nuclear disarmament.

Source: Agence France-Presse

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A Money Laundromat For Nukes Keeps It All That Much Cleaner

Washington (UPI) April 30, 2007
On Oct. 4, 2003, a German cargo ship, the BBC China, was inspected in the southern Italian port of Taranto as part of an ongoing program designed to check on ships that might be transporting equipment to assist nuclear proliferation. The inspection disclosed sophisticated components designed to facilitate the erection of centrifuges indispensable for the enrichment of weapons-grade uranium. The BBC China had taken on its secret cargo in Dubai and was on its way to Libya.

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