US obstructing progress on North Korea: Russian minister

[maddezmom]

Source: AFP

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia accused the United States on Monday of obstructing progress on the North Korean nuclear stand-off, saying Washington had failed to free up frozen North Korean funds.

The US government is "not removing the obstacles to using this money and this is creating problems. We cannot move forward as long as the North Korean side says that it has not received the money," Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov said, as quoted by the Interfax news agency.

Diplomatic efforts on North Korea should be focused not on imposing deadlines on Pyongyang but on fulfilling previous agreements, he added.

"We need to talk not about deadlines but about fulfilling these agreements," he said.

A deal reached in February at six-party talks on North Korea's atomic programme set April 14 as the deadline by which Pyongyang was to shut down and seal its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, which produces the raw material to make plutonium for nuclear weapons.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070416/ts_afp/nkoreanuclearweapons_070416100619

[tom_paine]

1. Well, given that both American and Russian varieties of BushPutinists

are lying handmaidens of tyranny, I wouldn't believe what either a Bushevik or a Putinist has to say.