MOSCOW, August 4 (RIA Novosti) - Deputy Assistant Secretary to the U.S. Under Secretary of the Treasury Daniel Glaser on Tuesday handed Moscow additional recommendations on private banks operating with North Korea.
A U.S. delegation headed by the coordinator for enforcement of UN sanctions against North Korea, Philip Goldberg, arrived in Moscow on Monday to discuss measures against the reclusive state.
"The American representative emphasized that the main goal of the meeting is a warning by private commercial banks on risks that they take when entering into contracts with North Korean banks," the Association of Russian Banks press service said.
The ARB director, Garegin Tosunyan, who was at the meeting on Tuesday, said that he shares the U.S. concerns in regard to risks and promised to forward the information to the association's members.
Glaser gave the participants of the meeting additional recommendations to those that have already been given to the Russian administration
A source in Russia's Foreign Ministry said earlier the U.S. delegation's agenda this week would cover the sanctions against Pyongyang that were agreed by the UN Security Council last month but no new sanctions would be discussed.
"The Americans are not pushing for additional sanctions not approved by the UN Security Council's Resolution 1874," the source said, adding that Russia was sticking firmly to its position that two-party sanctions are not productive.
Additional sanctions under Resolution 1874 include the search of North Korean shipping vessels on the open sea if they are believed to be carrying prohibited materials, as well as freezing bank accounts if they are believed to be used to fund the country's nuclear or rocket programs.
In the end of July, North Korea said it was ready for bilateral talks with the United States but repeated it would not rejoin the six-party talks over its nuclear program, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.
Washington has been unresponsive to Pyongyang's request, demanding the North return to the international talks involving the two Koreas, Russia, China, Japan and the United States.
The communist state quit the talks and announced the restart of its nuclear program after the UN Security Council condemned its April 5 long-range missile launch. The Security Council imposed tougher sanctions on the North after it conducted its second nuclear test in May.
