A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman on Tuesday said all sides in the Six-Party Talks were converging in their views on unfreezing the funds held by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) at the Macao-based Banco Delta Asia (BDA).

Liu Jianchao said, "The thoughts of all parties on how to address this technical issue now tend to be the same."

Liu said all the parties had consulted frequently in the past few weeks and made unremitting efforts to resolve the technical issue in order to implement the initial steps of an agreement to end the DPRK's nuclear activities signed on Feb. 13.

He said their resolve to realize the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula remained unchanged.

Along with the resolution of the frozen funds issue, the implementation of the agreement would be put on agenda, Liu said, adding, "The sooner, the better."

The Six-Party Talks have been in recess since March 22 due to difficulties in resolving the issue concerning the transfer of 25 million U.S. dollars in allegedly illicit DPRK funds frozen in the BDA.

The DPRK insisted that unfreezing the funds was a prerequisite for starting other negotiations.

The United States said earlier this month that it supported the return of the DPRK funds and had identified a way to do so. The DPRK said last Friday that it would "move" if the funds were released.

In a joint document signed on Feb. 13, the six parties agreed to a 60-day deadline, which ended on Saturday, to implement a series of initial steps, including the shutdown and sealing of the Yongbyon nuclear facility and the provision of energy aid to the DPRK.

Source: Xinhua