Chief U.S. negotiator confident in resolving BDA issue

Chief U.S. negotiator to the six-party talks Christopher Hill on Tuesday night said the current pace of the six-party talks is slow but he is confident that the BDA (Banco Delta Asia) issue would be resolved.

Hill depicted the second day of the sixth round of the six-party talks as "business-like".

Hill said he is not too concerned about the BDA, but he is concerned about what's the meaning of the disablement ,how to disable and what to disable.

Hill said that DPRK (the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) focuses too much on the issue of the money, saying BDA is not a political issue but a banking issue, "I hope DPRK can get the money as soon as possible"

Hill said he had a one-hour meeting with the chief DPRK negotiator on the afternoon of March 20. He also met bilaterally with delegates from China, Japan and the ROK (Republic of Korea).

According to Hill, the delegations to the talks would go to the obligation of the disablement and go to the issue of next phase on March 21.

The six-party talks, grouping China, the DPRK, the United States, the ROK, Japan and Russia, entered the second day on Tuesday. China had bilateral consultations with all the other five parties to the six-party talks. However, a previously planned meeting among the chief negotiators was cancelled due to a stalemate on dealing with the DPRK's frozen capital at the Banco Delta Asia in Macao.

Russian chief delegate Alexander Losyukov said, "the DPRK said its frozen funds in the BDA have not been transferred into the Bank of China in Beijing so far" .

The DPRK has asked unfreezing a 25 million U.S. dollar capital since 2005 when the United States accused BDA of helping the DRPK to launder money and freezed a DPRK's account at the BDA .