U.S. food aid to N. Korea suspended due to visa problem: State Dept.

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 (Yonhap) -- The delivery of humanitarian food aid to North
Korea by the United States has been suspended due to the failure by U.S. monitors
to get visas to enter the isolated communist state, the State Department said
Tuesday.
"Those people we have identified have not yet received their visas to enter North
Korea," deputy spokesman Gordon K. Duguid said. "I don't know as of today whether
they have or not. We are in a process, but we have not stopped the shipment."
Duguid was talking about 21,000 tons of food being delivered to the North as part
of the 500,000 tons committed in May.
The shipment was supposed to be made by the end of the year. The U.S. has shipped
143,000 tons of humanitarian food aid to the North so far this year despite
glitches in multilateral talks on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programs.
The spokesman reiterated that the U.S. government needs to assure transparency in
the distribution of the food aid amid allegations that much of the food aid might
have been funneled to the military and the power elite. Millions are said to be
suffering from food shortages in the North due to chronic floods and failed
policies.
A U.S. fact-finding mission recently concluded a North Korean tour on assuring
transparency in distribution of the food aid to non-government organizations.
"The U.S. needs to make sure that it is going to go where it is supposed to go,"
the spokesman said. "We need Korean speakers to accompany the distribution to the
NGOs."
He said North Koreans "did agree that in the delivery of that humanitarian aid,
that the U.S. would be allowed to identify Korean speakers who would work with
the NGOs to make sure that it goes to the people where it is supposed to go."
He dismissed the reports that the U.S. stopped funneling the food aid to the
North due to the visa problem. "The U.S. continues with the delivery of
humanitarian aid to North Korea," he said.
The last shipment of food aid was made in August as North Korea halted the
disablement of its nuclear facilities in response to Washington's failure to
delist it as a state sponsor of terrorism.
The U.S. delisted the North in October and Pyongyang subsequently resumed
disabling its facilities, but the latest round of the six-party talks failed to
produce an agreement on how to verify what the North declared as its nuclear
facilities in June.
After the disruption of the nuclear talks, Washington announced it would not
deliver energy aid promised under a six-party denuclearization deal unless the
North agreed to a complete verification protocol.
Washington, however, has said it will continue humanitarian food aid to the
impoverished communist state.
The World Food Program announced earlier this month that North Korea will need
more than 800,000 tons in additional food aid from abroad to feed its 21 million
people next year despite a rather good harvest this year.
South Korea, one of two major food donors to the North along with the U.S., has
shipped no food aid to the North since early this year, when the pro-U.S.,
conservative Lee Myung-bak government took office.
Lee's liberal predecessors had provided more than 400,000 tons of food and as
much fertilizer to the North annually virtually unconditionally over the past
decade.
Lee says he will link economic and other inter-Korean cooperation projects to
North Korea's denuclearization.
South Korean officials said North Korea is not in a dire situation requiring
emergency food aid, although it is ready to discuss such aid if the North makes a
request.
hdh@yna.co.kr
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