(LEAD) Lee says Seoul wants to give more humanitarian aid to Pyongyang

(ATTN: UPDATES with Lee's comments on four-river project, other details in last 6
paras)
By Lee Chi-dong
SEOUL, July 23 (Yonhap) -- President Lee Myung-bak said Friday South Korea is
willing to expand humanitarian assistance for North Korea despite heightened
cross-border tensions following the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship
blamed on Pyongyang.
"I am thinking about the South-North Korean issue in a big frame," Lee said in a
meeting with the newly elected local government leaders, according to Lee's
spokeswoman Kim Hee-jung. "The government is studying ways to help North Korea
live well."
Lee was responding to a report by Gyeonggi Province Governor Kim Moon-su that
North Korea has rejected his province's offer of anti-malaria medication, the
spokeswoman said.
"President Lee said such a humanitarian aid should continue and stressed more
active assistance is necessary to help North Korea," she said.
The spokeswoman did not elaborate further, but participants in the meeting quoted
the president as saying, "I felt ashamed when I was told by a top Vietnamese
official that North Korea asked for food aid from Vietnam."
Lee was also quoted as saying that he believes North Korea has the potential to
become more prosperous than China.
Inter-Korean relations worsened last year when the North conducted long-range
missile and nuclear tests. Tensions have gone up higher since South Korea's
1,200-ton South Korean patrol ship Cheonan sank in March from what investigators
said was a North Korean torpeodo attack. The attack killed 46 sailors.
In a retaliatory measure, South Korea cut off all inter-Korean economic exchanges
except for a joint industrial complex in the North's border city of Kaesong.
Meanwhile, Lee appealed for the mayors and governors to assist his push to clean
and refurbish the country's four major rivers, one of his administration's key
projects.
"It is a policy matter, not a political one," Lee said.
The government launched the 22 trillion won (US$19 billion) project to improve
water quality and prevent floods, but critics claim it will only devastate the
rivers' ecosystems.
Several of the newly elected chiefs of local authorities, who belong to the main
opposition Democratic Party (DP), have been uncooperative in the matter, with
some even suspending related construction work.
"I will listen to opinions unique to each region," the president said. "But it is
not right to protest (the four-river project) collectively."
Lee also called for the local governments to step up efforts to fight corruption
and improve the financial health of public firms under their control.
lcd@yna.co.kr
(END)

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