Is It All About the Benjamins in Closing Down North Korea's Reactor?

CNN reports "Pyongyang and Washington have agreed on a three-week timeframe for shutting down the North's plutonium-producing reactor, a top U.S. nuclear envoy said Saturday after returning from a rare visit to the reclusive state.

Christopher Hill -- the chief U.S. negotiator at international talks on North Korea's nuclear programs -- said they were looking at a three-week timeframe for shutting down the Yongbyon reactor, when asked by reporters on his arrival at Tokyo's Haneda Airport."

At the root of negotiations have been frozen North Korean assets that were slow to transfer from a bank in Macau to one in Russia and UN energy aid funds for closing down the reactor.

"North Korea had made the money's release a main condition for its disarmament, and used the financial dispute as a reason to stay away from six-party nuclear talks -- involving the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the U.S. -- for more than a year, during which it conducted its first nuclear test explosion, in October.

North Korea is to ultimately get aid worth 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil and other political concessions when it disables the reactor."