The First Cracks in the Agreed Framework 2.0

Is anyone surprised by this at all:

North Korea will not stop its nuclear activity unless $25 million of its funds held in a Macau bank are fully released, the regime’s top nuclear envoy said Saturday.

Banco Delta Asia had been blacklisted by Washington since September 2005 for its complicity in North Korean money laundering. The U.S. had promised to resolve the issue as part of the implementation of a landmark nuclear disarmament deal with North Korea.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Treasury Department ended its investigation into the small Macau lender and said that ties would be cut with the bank and the U.S. financial system. The move might lead regulators to unfreeze a portion of the money.

Issuing the communist state’s first official response to the U.S. decision, Kim Kye Gwan said Saturday in Beijing that his country has not heard anything officially about the lifting of financial sanctions.

"We will not stop our nuclear activity until our funds frozen in the BDA are fully released," he said. "We will not stop the Yongbyon nuclear facility until the United States fully releases our funds frozen in the BDA."

What annoys me about the media coverage of this latest North Korean antic is that the unfreezing of money in the Macau bank was not an agreed upon pre-condition for the US to give to North Korea in return for freezing their nuclear reactor.  I recommend everyone read OFK’s excellent run down on this issue.  However, I felt the tone of the article made it sound like the US side is the one not living up to the agreement by not unfreezing the accounts when in fact it is the North Koreans making demands that are not in the original agreement.