Since talks on the normalization of diplomatic ties between North Korea and the U.S. ended in New York on Wednesday, North Korea’s top nuclear envoy Kim Kye-gwan has been telling everyone he reached agreement on all critical issues with his U.S. counterpart Christopher Hill. That includes Pyongyang’s demands to unfreeze North Korea’s accounts with the Macau-based Banco Delta Asia, remove it from the U.S. list of states sponsoring terrorism and lift economic sanctions under the Trading with the Enemy Act. Does that ring true even though North Korea has yet to shut down its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon, the first step it promised under the Feb. 13 six-nation agreement?

◆ The accounts

Kim suggested the U.S. agreed to unfreeze all US$24 million in accounts with the Macau bank. But the U.S. has not said whether it will unfreeze all or just some of them. In a meeting with the North in Berlin in January, the U.S. agreed to unfreeze North Korean accounts within a month after an accord is reached in the six-way nuclear dialogue framework. Don Oberdorfer, the chairman of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, said it is uncertain which accounts will be unfrozen. He said unless Washington unfreezes all accounts, Pyongyang could change its attitude and argue that it need not adhere to some parts of the six-party agreement either. Indeed, Kim told reporters in Beijing on Saturday that the North will inevitably take only partial steps if the U.S. leaves some accounts frozen.

The Macao Daily News supported speculations that the U.S. will unfreeze only part of the North Korean accounts, while U.S. Rep. Ed Royce wrote in the Wall Street Journal that punishing the North for its illicit activities is a way to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula earlier. By unfreezing all the accounts, the U.S. lays itself open to charges that designating the bank a “major money-laundering concern” in the first place was over the top.

◆ The blacklist

Kim said the U.S. agreed to remove North Korea from the list of states sponsoring terrorism and lift economic sanctions under the Trading with the Enemy Act. The U.S. added the North to the terror sponsor list in 1988, one year after North Korea’s bombing of Korean Air flight 858. South Korean officials believe it would be difficult for the U.S. to strike North Korea from the list before the North shuts down its nuclear facilities. Bruce Klingner of the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank said the North will remain on the list of terrorist sponsors when it comes out in April.

Nor do analysts think that sanctions under the Trading with the Enemy Act imposed after the Korean War can be lifted immediately. Neither can sanctions which ban Americans from financial transactions with the North and freeze North Korea’s assets in the U.S. Pundits say the sanctions will only be lifted when the U.S. concludes that North Korea has completely disabled its nuclear program and no longer poses a threat

(englishnews@chosun.com )