North Korea's $25 million deposited in Banco Delta Asia was unfrozen in March in an attempt to win Pyongyang's promise to close its nuclear reactor. But the fund transfer has been stalled, and in response the Communist regime has delayed shutting down its Yongbyon reactor expected in April.
"Transferring North Korean funds from BDA is not difficult technically, but North Korea does not want a single transfer, it wants to use the precedent to become part of the international financial system again," the Chinese-language paper quoted a source in Macao as saying.
"This is the reason why the money has not been transferred to date," the paper said.
The North has pledged that it will fulfill its February commitments with five countries involved in a protracted nuclear dispute, as soon as it receives the funds.
The impoverished state has been cut off from global financial markets for several years and has used cash or complicated barter schemes to pay for supplies and services from other countries.
The North Korean BDA accounts were frozen in October 2005 at the request of the United States, which accused the regime of counterfeiting and money laundering. Washington also blacklisted the Macao bank earlier this year, making other banks wary of handling Korean funds and dealing with the BDA.
BDA Chairman Stanley Au has said Washington had no grounds to demand the arrest of Pyongyang's 52 accounts, South Korea's Yonhap agency said Monday. The agency said he had sent a petition to the U.S. Treasury Department, saying its unsubstantiated sanctions posed a threat to the bank's business.
Pyongyang had boycotted disarmament talks with China, the U.S., South Korea, Russia and Japan for more than a year over the funds, and conducted its first nuclear bomb tests in October 2006.
