U.S. envoy says Washington 'prepared to deal with' sanctions on Macau bank

The top U.S. negotiator on North Korea's nuclear program said Wednesday that Washington will discuss easing restrictions on a bank in Macau accused of backing Pyongyang's illicit financial activities when the two countries meet in the six-party talks.

"We're prepared to discuss it, address it," Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said in a briefing at the U.S. State Department ahead of his trip to Asia for the six-party talks.

Banco Delta Asia in the Chinese territory has been accused of having served as a money-laundering facility for cash-strapped North Korea. The U.S. sanctions on the bank have been one of the key reasons Pyongyang boycotted the six-party talks for 13 months.

"And next week when we do meet in Beijing, there will be a separate bilateral mechanism to have a preliminary -- preliminary -- discussion on this matter," he said.

A U.S. Treasury Department official will lead the bilateral meeting with Pyongyang, he said. The financial meeting will be a separate mechanism from the six-party talks aimed at resolving the dispute over the North's nuclear weapons program.

He also said the North has told the United States, "We understand your position" on the sanctions during their discussions last month.

Besides the closure of North Korean accounts at the Macau bank, the U.S. sanctions also included a trade embargo on luxury goods and nuclear and weapons-related material. Hill said all those sanctions will remain in place during the six-way talks.

After a flurry of diplomatic mediation efforts, the talks are scheduled to resume in Beijing on Monday. Hill said his upcoming trip will include a stop in Tokyo and possibly in Seoul before he arrives in Beijing on Sunday, when the talks may begin that evening along with South Korea, China, Japan and Russia.

The aim of the talks was to implement a landmark deal the six countries reached in September last year, he said, in which the North agreed to abandon its nuclear weapons program in return for economic aid and security guarantees from the other five countries.

Despite North Korea's record of conducting missile and nuclear bomb tests this year, Hill ruled out giving a greater status to the North.

"I think we have made it clear to the North Koreans that we do not accept them as a nuclear power," he said.

Hill said the North's human rights issue should not come up during the nuclear talks, which has been rejected by Pyongyang and sought by Japan in relation to the North's past abductions of Japanese citizens.

"I would start with the U.N. Charter in that regard. But as we go to these six-party talks, the purpose of the six-party talks is to achieve denuclearization," he said.

Hill said North Korea indicated in bilateral meetings late last month that it was "prepared to deal in specifics" when it returns to the talks.

"The Chinese have also been in direct contact with the North Koreans on several occasions and they also have reason to believe that we will see some specific ideas for moving ahead," he said.

Hill refused to be optimistic about the talks, saying the new round will be "very difficult negotiations."

"I am not here to predict success or express optimism," he said.

"We need a sign that we have moved off of the pages of the September agreement and onto the ground of the Korean Peninsula."

Washington, Dec. 13 (Yonhap News)