Frozen funds are released to N. Korea

North Korea has received millions of dollars in frozen funds that had stalled nuclear disarmament talks and must quickly shut down its only reactor, the U.S. envoy to the negotiations said Tuesday.

More than $20 million in North Korean funds had been frozen in a Macao bank blacklisted by the United States over allegations of money-laundering and other financial crimes. The dispute halted negotiations with the communist nation for more than a year, and the U.S. approved the release of the money this year to help end the standoff.

“My understanding is that today it was deposited in a North Korean account in Russia,” U.S. envoy Christopher Hill told reporters in Tokyo.

“I think this is the time when everyone needs to kind of quicken the pace and work very hard” toward disarmament, he said. Hill, on a tour to Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo, had said he hoped to see a shutdown “within weeks, not months.”

Hill said that the sum transferred was about $23 million and that it was the total amount. It was unclear why the figure differed from the previously reported sum of about $25 million.

Russia’s Interfax China news agency cited an unidentified North Korean official on Monday as saying the government in Pyongyang plans to shut down the reactor in the second half of July.

Meanwhile, North Korea fired a short-range missile Tuesday toward waters between the Korean peninsula and Japan, but South Korean officials said the launch appeared to be part of routine drills and would not affect arms control talks.