北朝鮮への資金返還が完了＝仲介したロシア銀行

【モスクワ２５日】マカオの金融機関バンコ･デルタ･アジア（ＢＤＡ）で凍結されていた北朝鮮の資金に関して、同資金の北朝鮮への返還の仲介をしたロシアの極東商業銀行（ダリコムバンク）は２５日、同資金が北朝鮮の外国貿易銀行に移管されたことを明らかにした。（写真は、ピョンヤン市街）
　極東商業銀行は公式サイトで「（北朝鮮の）資金は２５日に北朝鮮の外国貿易銀行の口座に入金された。これで資金の送金問題は完全に解決した」と述べている。同銀行はまた、このことが北朝鮮の非核化問題の早急な解決に貢献し、朝鮮半島の緊張をなくし、北朝鮮の国際社会との協力を強化することを望むとしている。
　北朝鮮は同資金の返還が確認されるまで、６カ国協議で合意された寧辺の核施設の稼動停止･封印を履行しないとしていた。 〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕

時事ドットコム：北朝鮮への資金返還が完了＝仲介したロシア銀行

日本人拉致問題の実態、外国語で発信へ…官邸ホームページ

　政府は、北朝鮮による日本人拉致問題の実態を海外に広く知らせるため、首相官邸のホームページに外国語で、拉致被害者が拉致された経緯や救出に向けた政府の取り組み、日朝交渉の現状などを紹介するページを作成する。

　各国の認知度を高めて北朝鮮への国際的な圧力を強めるのが狙いで、今秋以降、順次掲載していく方針だ。

　拉致問題に関する外国政府の認識はまだ十分とは言えず、５月に拉致問題担当の中山恭子首相補佐官が訪中した際も、中国側の担当者は、北朝鮮が横田めぐみさんの遺骨として返還した骨が偽物だったことを知らなかったという。

　政府は今後、広報活動の重点を国内から海外に移していく考えで、今年度は拉致問題に関する約１億１０００万円の広報予算を利用し、英語や中国語などで拉致問題を紹介するページを作成する。海外の報道関係者などを日本に招き、拉致現場の視察や拉致被害者らとの面談を通じて拉致問題を理解してもらう計画も検討している。

Yahoo!ニュース - 読売新聞 - 日本人拉致問題の実態、外国語で発信へ…官邸ホームページ

Still Waiting on North Korea

The Bush administration is eager to believe that Kim Jong Il will -- for the first time -- fulfill his promises.

Sunday, June 24, 2007; Page B06

ONE HUNDRED thirty-one days ago North Korea committed itself to shutting down the plutonium-producing Yongbyon nuclear reactor within 60 days, readmitting international inspectors and discussing "a list of all its nuclear programs" in exchange for 50,000 tons of fuel oil and the beginning of a normalization of relations with the United States. Since then the Bush administration has made a string of concessions to Pyongyang, most of them unmentioned in the Feb. 13 accord. The regime of Kim Jong Il has done nothing, other than skillfully extract those favors.

Friday in Pyongyang, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill predicted that the payoff for the United States and its negotiating partners was imminent. United Nations inspectors, he said, would visit the North this week, and the reactor would be shut down "the week after that, or two weeks after that." If so -- and we won't be holding our breath -- that will be good news. But the means of getting there ought to prompt more caution about a process that, even with a Yongbyon shutdown, will not have reached the point where North Korea's seriousness about denuclearization could be confirmed.

Mr. Hill's presence in Pyongyang was one of those extra concessions obtained by the North. In the past the Bush administration has resisted such one-on-one talks in favor of the six-party format; his was the first visit by a senior U.S. official in almost five years. While he was there, administration officials were anxiously awaiting confirmation of the return of $25 million in North Korean funds that had been frozen in a Macao bank because of a U.S. Treasury investigation. The United States promised a "resolution" of the investigation at the time of the Feb. 13 agreement; since then it has caved to the North's demands that it return all of the money -- not just that unconnected to criminal activities -- and transfer it through the U.S. Federal Reserve, thereby signaling Mr. Kim's restored access to the international banking system.

Though still waiting for the North's first step, Mr. Hill sounded almost euphoric on Friday. "I come away . . . buoyed by a sense that we are going to be able to achieve our full objectives, that is, complete denuclearization," he said in Seoul. As for the turning point defined by his boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- North Korean action to permanently disable Yongbyon, along with a complete disclosure of its nuclear programs -- "that's a few months down the road," Mr. Hill said.

Yongbyon's dismantlement would indeed be a breakthrough. But months already have passed since the North missed the initial deadline for suspending operations at the reactor, with no consequence other than additional U.S. sweeteners. Mr. Kim seems adept at exploiting American impatience for a breakthrough. During its last weeks the Clinton administration was drawn in by North Korean hints about a deal on its missile program, and it dispatched Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to Pyongyang for what became a grotesque propaganda windfall for Mr. Kim. The missile deal never came close to materializing.

Given the threat posed by a loathsome dictatorship apparently armed with nuclear weapons, the Bush administration is right to explore whether Mr. Kim's promises of disarmament are serious this time. But it should stop making one-sided concessions to a regime that has, as yet, not shown it will do more than pocket them.

Still Waiting on North Korea - washingtonpost.com