Six-party talks to be extended amid stalemate on DPRK frozen funds

The six-party talks aiming at resolving the Korean Peninsular nuclear issue will be extended, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Wednesday evening.

"The duration of the talks will depend on the progress," Qin told reporters after a brief chief negotiators' meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse late Wednesday.

The announcement came amid the stalemate over the frozen funds of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea(DPRK) at a Macao bank.

Japan's top negotiator Kenichiro Sasae confirmed late Wednesday the talks will be extended for one or two days.

"As far as I know, the Bank of China refuses to accept the transfer of the frozen funds from the Macao-based Banco Delta Asia (BDA)," Russian representative Alexander Losyukov said at his hotel.

The U.S. Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Daniel Glaser said on Monday that the DPRK's 25 million U.S. dollars frozen funds at BDA would be transferred to a DPRK account at the Bank of China.

"It is important that the BDA issue is solved swiftly and that we can enter substantive discussions on denuclearization," Sasae said.

The current six-party talks, which involved China, the DPRK, the United States, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Japan and Russia, are aimed at discussing specific steps in the initial phase of the Feb. 13 deal, in which the DPRK agreed to shut down the Yongbyon nuclear facility in return for energy aid.

The talks have remained stalled since Tuesday as the DPRK refused to attend the talks until its frozen funds at a Macao bank are fully released.

The ROK will not provide energy assistance to the DPRK unless the DPRK announces the time it shuts down its nuclear facilities and accepts the personnel of UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), top ROK negotiator Chun Yung Woo said Wednesday afternoon.

According to a Feb. 13 deal, the DPRK shall shut down its nuclear facilities while the other parties shall provide emergency energy assistance to it and the shipment will commence within the next 60 days.

U.S. envoy Christopher Hill said late Wednesday upon return to his hotel, "In our bilateral meeting with the DPRK, we talked a little about the bank account issue and agreed they are technical matters."

"We talked about the way ahead the denuclearization issues in the 60-day period," Hill said.

The U.S. envoy said he also had a long meeting with China as well as the ROK on Wednesday.

Losyukov said no progress came out of Wednesday's negotiations, which involved a series of one-on-one talks and a chief negotiators' meeting.

Hill said he really expected to get something done tomorrow.

In the current round of the six-party talks, envoys also planned to discuss the parties' steps in the next phase of denuclearization following the 60-day initial phase.