U.S. hints at resuming food aid to N. Korea: State Dept.

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 (Yonhap) -- The United States Tuesday hinted at restarting
food aid to North Korea, which was suspended early last year amid heightened
tensions over its nuclear and missile tests.
"The efforts on trying to achieve a non-nuclear North Korea should not in any way
be connected with efforts to improve the lives of ordinary North Koreans," State
Department deputy spokesman Gordon Duguid said in a daily news briefing. "The
United States is trying to help the people of North Korea in whatever ways we
can."
Food aid was suspended in March last year when North Korea refused to issue visas
to Korean-speaking monitors, whose mission was to assure that the food aid was
not funneled to the military and government elite.
North Korea recently said it was ready to return to the six-nation forum, which
it has boycotted since early last year over U.N. sanctions.
North Korea's chief nuclear envoy, Kim Kye-gwan, reportedly will visit the U.S.
next month to follow up on the tour of North Korea by Stephen Bosworth, special
representative for North Korea policy, in December to discuss the reopening of
the nuclear negotiations.
As a condition to rejoining the talks, Pyongyang has insisted on the lifting of
sanctions and signing a peace treaty to replace the armistice that ended the
1950-53 Korean War. Washington wants the North to return to the talks first.
The U.S., which had provided more than 2 million tons of food aid to the North
over the past decade or so, delivered 169,000 tons of food to North Korea from
May 2008 to March 2009.
International relief organizations also suspended humanitarian food aid to North
Korea around that time as the North Korean government expelled international
monitors amid escalating tensions over its rocket test launch.
"Until North Korea ended the program, we were supplying food aid to North Korea
to try and alleviate the starvation that is caused by no other factor other than
the government's pursuit of a nuclear program at all costs -- costs to its
people, costs to its economy," Duguid said.
Relief organizations have said that North Korea will need at least 1 million tons
of food from abroad to feed its 24 million people this year. Reports indicate
thousands have already starved to death this winter due to the sanctions and
skyrocketing commodity prices caused by a revaluation of its currency.
The conservative South Korean government of Lee Myung-bak has also stopped
shipping food to the North, demanding as a quid pro quo that the North make
progress in the nuclear talks. Lee's liberal predecessors had each year shipped
about 400,000 tons of food and as much fertilizer to North Korea without
conditions.
Robert King, U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights, said recently,
"The United States does not link humanitarian assistance to any political
considerations."
"If we are able to reach agreement on being able to monitor humanitarian
assistance, and if the need is there, and if the resources are on our side and
the competing demands are met, we would be willing to look at providing
assistance again," King said.
In August last year, a group of North Korean officials visited Los Angeles to
meet with U.S. relief organizations in an apparent move to discuss resumption of
food aid.
hdh@yna.co.kr
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