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North Korea will not shut down its nuclear facilities despite agreeing to do so last month until the United States unfreezes all of its funds held at a Macau bank, the communist state's top nuclear negotiator said Saturday.

"If the United States does not remove all of its restrictions on our funds at Banco Delta Asia (BDA), we cannot shut down our nuclear facilities at Yongbyon," Kim Kye-gwan told reporters upon arrival here.

Under a nuclear deal signed Feb. 13, the North is to shut down and seal the Yongbyon facilities before April 13 in exchange for 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil and other benefits, including the unfreezing of its assets at the Macau bank.

Washington announced Wednesday that it has barred U.S. financial institutions from dealing with the Macau bank because of its links to the North's alleged illicit financial activities, such as counterfeiting and money laundering.

The move was widely expected to lead to the liquidation of the Macau bank, thus allowing the impoverished North to reclaim its frozen assets of some US$24 million in the process.

Kim, however, said he has yet to hear that the funds will be released.

Christopher Hill, Washington's top nuclear envoy, said the financial issue will no longer come up in discussions in a "couple of days."

"BDA will not pose an obstacle to the six-party talks. I know there are a lot of questions. That's why I need to talk with Kim Kye-gwan," he told reporters as he began what he called a full-schedule day Saturday.

The U.S. diplomat said Friday that he would meet his North Korean counterpart Kim "soon after" he arrived here.

The nuclear negotiators are here to hold a fresh round of six-nation talks aimed at ending the North's nuclear weapons program, scheduled to begin Monday. The talks are also attended by South Korea, Japan, Russia and host China.

One of unsettled issues in the nuclear talks is whether the communist nation has a weapons program based on highly enriched uranium (HEU), an accusation made by Washington in late 2002, triggering the eruption of the ongoing crisis.

Hill told Yonhap News Agency on Friday that his country would press the communist nation "in a couple of weeks" with its gathered evidence on the North's suspected HEU program.

Kim said Pyongyang was willing to work with Washington, but repeated his country's denial of having a uranium program, saying he will "explain" if the U.S. produces evidence.

Beijing, March 17 (Yonhap News)