[imText1]It is said that the U.S considers to lift the sanction on some legal ones of North Korea’s accounts frozen in Banco Delta Asia (BDA).
However, regardless of this measure, the Bush Administration seems to continue to strongly response to North Korea’s illegal activities.
On the 2nd, some newspapers reported that before the six-party talk the U.S Treasury Department will end the investigation on BDA, located in Macao, and lift 1,200 dollars revealed as legal money of 2,400 dollars frozen in BDA.
It was known that the legal money is owned by Daedong Trust Bank located Pyongyang and “British American Tobacco” that has sold tobacco to North Korea.
With regard to this, Molly Miller, the Treasury Department Spokesperson stated in an interview with RFA that, “It would be premature to infer what measure would be taken to BDA”, reminding “BDA is still on the money laundry bank list of the U.S Treasury Department”.
Ashai newspaper also reported that the U.S does not consider to lift the financial sanction from BDA, though North Korea returns to the six-party talk, quoting what a high-level official said.
This high-ranking official said that the U.S plans to continue investigating North Korea’s accounts in BDA and furthermore did not affirm any take-off from the financial sanction in the unofficial three-party meeting held in Beijing.
North Korea’s accounts, difficult to tell legal from illegal
In addition, Researcher Raphael Perl of U.S CRS pointed up in an interview with RFA that, “The financial sanction against North Korea is related to the nuclear test, yet the main interest the U.S would like to draw from this six-party talk to is to find out some solution to resolve the nuclear problem, not the BDA problem”.
David Asher, former State Department Advisor, pointed out that the BDA is not related to the six-party talk saying “The BDA problem completely depends on the U.S Treasury Department”.
Mr. Asher expected that, “The Bush administration will keep engaging in the matters related to North Korea via the six-party talk while it will take a firm stance against illegal activities of North Korea”.
The investigation on BDA has been done since last September. The U.S Treasury Department detected North Korea’s accounts in BDA to be related to WMD and has tracked down its accounts. Besides, the Treasury Department has extended the investigation on the money related to North Korea’s illegal activities such as exporting illegal weapons and distributing counterfeit dollars to international community.
On the other hand, North Korea has strongly demanded to take off the financial sanction against North Korea’s accounts in BDA doing the missile tests and the nuclear test.
The U.S was successful in provoking North Korea through the sanction against BDA with touching North Korea’s sore spot while it reinforced the control over North Korea’s financial transactions in banks of China, Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan and Singapore.
In the meantime, some analyze that because of the difficulty to tell legal from illegal money of North Korea, it would be not easy to lift part of the sanction.
Not only the reason, is it but also because North Korea jumps from one bank to another.
