US Wants to Block All of N. Korea's Financial Deals

By Park Song-wu
Staff Reporter
12-12-2006

A ranking U.S. official said in New York on Monday that the international community should ensure that all rogue states’ financial activities are stopped, whether they are "seemingly legitimate or illicit."

Stuart Levey, the U.S. Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said that financial institutions must implement effective programs, including targeted financial sanctions, to combat threats from terrorist groups and proliferators of weapons of mass destruction such as North Korea.

His remarks came as the six-party talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear programs set to resume in Beijing next week. During the talks, the North hopes to find a negotiated way out of financial restrictions imposed by the United States for its alleged illegal activities, such as counterfeiting and money laundering.

Washington promised to set up a working group within the six-party framework to discuss sanctions. The North’s accounts in Banco Delta Asia in Macau were frozen in September 2006, and sanctions have now almost severed Pyongyang’s access to the global financial network.

"We must also go beyond simply designating individuals and entities that have been named by the United Nations and proactively identify terrorist supporters that threaten our societies, hold them publicly accountable, isolate them financially and commercially, and ensure that all of their activities, whether seemingly legitimate or illicit, are shut down,’’ he said.

In a related development, the Macau bank recently said in a filing to the U.S. Treasury Department that it bought gold from the North, Bloomberg reported on Monday.

The bank said in a letter dated Oct. 18 that it "purchased a large share of the gold bullion produced by North Korea’’ before being listed by the United States as a "primary money-laundering concern."

"Money could have been laundered, but there is no specific evidence that the bank was aware that it was being used for this purpose, nor that it facilitated any criminal activities,'' the letter said.

The bank said it revamped its management system after the U.S. action, froze North Korea-related accounts, hired an outside firm to establish procedures against money laundering and asked the Treasury Department to reconsider its ruling.

North Korean assets worth about $24 million are held at the bank.

A North Korean official in New York confirmed Pyongyang’s participation in the six-party talks on Tuesday.

"The talks will be held next week, but it is the moment to watch how talks develop," Yonhap News Agency quoted Kim Myong-gil, a minister for North Korea's mission to the United Nations in New York, as saying.

He declined to elaborate, the wire service said.

North Korea agreed in September 2005 to dismantle its nuclear programs in return for security guarantees and economic aid, but follow-up negotiations have not made any progress.

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