Glaser to Meet With N.Korean Officials

Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes Daniel Glaser speaks to reporters at Beijing's international airport, China, Sunday, Jan. 28, 2007. Glaser arrived in Beijing to resume negotiations with his North Korean counterparts on the financial issue. (AP Photo/Elizabeth Dalziel) (Elizabeth Dalziel - AP)

BEIJING -- A U.S. Treasury official arrived in Beijing Sunday to resume negotiations with North Korea over alleged illicit financial dealings, an issue that has hobbled the North Korean nuclear disarmament talks.

Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Daniel Glaser said he would meet with North Korean officials Tuesday and hoped the talks would build on discussions in December.

"I'm looking forward to some productive meetings, picking up from where we left off," Glaser, whose portfolio covers terrorist financing and financial crimes, told reporters.

The financial negotiations are expected to clear the way for another round of talks on dismantling North Korea's nuclear programs, perhaps in early February.

Pyongyang has tied the two together since Washington took action against the Macau-based Banco Delta Asia in 2005, accusing the small, privately run bank of laundering counterfeit money and abetting other unspecified criminal acts by North Korea.

The move has caused other banks to steer clear of North Korean business for fear of losing access to the U.S. market and thereby crimped North Korea's access to the international banking system.

Pyongyang called the actions evidence of U.S. hostility. For a year, it boycotted the six-nation disarmament negotiations, demanding that Washington first end the financial isolation campaign and lift a freeze on $24 million in accounts at Banco Delta Asia.

After it exploded a nuclear device in October, North Korea agreed to return to the disarmament talks, as long as there were separate negotiations on the financial issues.

But both the six-nation disarmament talks _which also include China, Japan, Russia and South Korea _ and the financial discussions held in Beijing in December ended inconclusively. U.S. officials have indicated that North Korea was still demanding the financial issues be dealt with before progress could be made on the nuclear talks.