Well, to make the pessimists happy the 6PT do seem to be at a stalemate over the same issue: money. While the Treasury Dept has withdrawn its complaints regarding the money, China and other international banks seem to be unwilling to take the funds since it has the stigma of laundered money on it. A possible solution that has come up is for the North Korean government to open up a new separate account at the BDA to withdraw the money. If that's the case, I don't see why North Korea can't just withdraw the money immediately since technically the funds have been released. Why would they have to open a new account or go through China then?
The North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim also indicated to the Bill Richardson delegation that as soon as they received the funds, they would allow IAEA officials back into the country--with the caveat that shutting down the Yongbyong reactor by Saturday would be "difficult." So I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens at the end of this week. Most likely it will be something like the US-Korea FTA process with a mad scramble at the end to put something together.
On a different note, there was an article on Ethiopia having bought arms from North Korea earlier this year with US consent. It was rather interesting and pointed out the US policy of turning a blind eye to allies who are cooperating with it.
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The US announced today (Tuesday) that the funds would be released soon from Macau, however the Macau authorities would not make any affirmation beyond that they had seen the US Treasury statement.
This is curious - if the problem lies between the Bank of China, and Banco Delta Asia, why is the US Treasury issuing statements saying the money would flow soon. Strange. Here's the Post article on the latest.
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