MOSCOW, June 14 (RIA Novosti) - Most of North Korea's $25 million held in previously-frozen accounts with a Macao bank have been transferred, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said Thursday.
The 52 accounts held by the Communist regime in Banco Delta Asia were frozen in September 2005 after the U.S. accused Pyongyang of counterfeiting and money laundering. $20 million of the funds have been released.
Although the accounts were unfrozen in March after North Korea agreed to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, Banco Delta Asia remained blacklisted, making foreign banks reluctant to handle further transactions.
The transfer dramatically improves the chances of ending a deadlock in the implementation of North Korea's denuclearization plan, adopted in February at Beijing talks between Pyongyang and the five other countries involved in the protracted dispute over its nuclear program - South Korea, the United States, China, Russia, and Japan.
According to Yonhap agency, the funds would likely be transferred to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and later wired to Russia's Dalkombank in the country's Far Eastern Khabarovsk Territory, via Russia's Central Bank.
Following the reports, the Russian Finance Ministry said it did not have confirmation of the North Korean funds transfer.
"Media should not spread unconfirmed rumors on this issue," a source with the ministry told RIA Novosti.
The impoverished North has been cut off from global financial markets for several years, and has used cash or complex barter schemes to pay for supplies and services from other countries.
Pyongyang boycotted disarmament talks for more than a year over the funds, and conducted its first nuclear bomb test in October 2006.
Under a breakthrough deal in February, North Korea was to close down its Yongbyon reactor by April 14 in exchange for economic and political incentives, including fuel and food supplies to the regime, which relies heavily on foreign aid.
The North has pledged that it will fulfill its February commitments as soon as it receives the funds.
