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The United States is showing "unusual American patience" in waiting for North Korea to implement its part of a denuclearization agreement and has not given up, a White House official said Wednesday.

"This agreement is a great agreement. We want to see it implemented," Dennis Wilder, senior Asia director at the National Security Council (NSC), told foreign journalists about the deal signed by six governments in February.

"We are prepared to be a little bit patient," he said, but added, "Patience isn't endless."

Wilder talked to the foreign press a day before Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe comes to Washington for talks with U.S. President George W. Bush. It's his first trip here as prime minister.

The two leaders meet as they wait for Pyongyang to move forward on the Feb. 13 denuclearization pact that commits North Korea to shut down its key nuclear facilities and invite back international inspectors. Both were supposed to be done within 60 days of the agreement, which was April 14. The pact was signed at the six-nation talks to which the U.S. and Japan are members, along with South and North Korea, China and Russia.

North Korea has delayed the implementation, demanding it must first receive some US$25 million that was frozen by a Macanese bank but released earlier this month through negotiations with the U.S.

Banco Delta Asia (BDA), a small bank based in Macau, had seized the funds after the U.S. Treasury accused it of laundering money for North Korea.

But Pyongyang has yet to withdraw the funds and insists the BDA matter has not been fully settled. A North Korean diplomat in New York told Yonhap on Tuesday that Pyongyang wants the money transferred from BDA to another bank. Financial institutions, however, are reluctant to accept the money linked to North Korea's shady businesses.

"We have taken the action the North Koreans asked for in terms of BDA accounts," Wilder said.

"Our expectation ... is that the North Koreans now share their intent to move forward with this."

Japan is one of the hardliners at the six-party talks, a stance that is not completely in tune with the U.S. approach in recent days. While Washington adheres to the February pact, Tokyo is questioning North Korea's commitment and talking about adding pressure.

Tokyo has its own issues with Pyongyang, which admitted to kidnapping Japanese citizens in the past to train spies. North Korea has also test-launched missiles that proved Japan was well within its striking range, and in October of last year conducted its first nuclear weapons test.

The U.S. supports the Japanese position on the kidnappings, pressing the North to account for each individual's whereabouts.

The issue is cited in the State Department's annual report as an example of North Korea's terrorist activities.

"We are not going to de-link the abductee issue from the state sponsor of terrorism issue," Wilder said.

"We fully expect that the bilateral working group between Japan and (North Korea) is going to have success in moving forward on this issue."

The NSC director didn't expect the two leaders to address Japan's history issues, mainly the sexual enslavement of women during World War II.

Commonly called "comfort women," young girls were lured or forcibly taken to frontline brothels to provide sex to Japanese soldiers. The majority of the victims were Koreans, whose country was under Japanese colonial rule at the time.

Abe raised furor last month when he said there was no evidence that there was any coercion of the victims, comments that led to unprecedented criticism in the U.S. media. In a series of press interviews ahead of his Washington visit, Abe recognized Japan's responsibility for the comfort women's suffering and apologized.

Earlier this month, he personally called President Bush to explain.

"I don't think this is going to be a major issue of the visit because the two have discussed these issues in depth," said Wilder "Prime Minister Abe has, I think, done a lot in the last few weeks to clear up the misunderstandings about where Japan is on the comfort women issue," he said.

"This was a horrible situation. Prime Minister Abe has apologized."

But in a separate briefing at the White House, Wilder talked about what Japan needs to do.

"As you move forward, Japan as a modern, democratic nation needs to find a way to place these issues behind it so it can move forward in cooperation with its neighbors," he said.
Washington, April 25 (Yonhap News)