Unification Ministry to close humanitarian aid unit on North Korea

SEOUL, May 4 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's Unification Ministry is set to close its
bureau on humanitarian aid to North Korea as part of its restructuring, officials
said Monday, a move that mirrors frozen political relations.

The restructuring plan, when approved by a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, will
shut down the Humanitarian Cooperation Bureau established in late 1996, ministry
officials said.
The bureau has been in charge of sending humanitarian aid to the North, arranging
reunions of families separated by the Korean War and assisting with the
resettlement of North Korean defectors in the South.
Its four divisions will be either absorbed into the Inter-Korean Exchanges and
Cooperation Bureau or the higher-level Unification Policy Office, they said.
"The Humanitarian Cooperation Bureau will be dissolved ... But those plans will
be confirmed after they are approved in the Cabinet meeting," a ministry official
said, requesting anonymity because the plan has yet to be formally sealed.
The restructuring comes as inter-Korean relations have dipped to their lowest
level in a decade. Seoul suspended rice and fertilizer aid after President Lee
Myung-bak took office in February last year, vowing a tougher stance on North
Korea's nuclear program. Pyongyang cut off government-level dialogue and stopped
reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 war. The political freeze
considerably reduced the humanitarian bureau's functions.
North Korea also abolished a Cabinet-level committee on economic cooperation with
South Korea in an April 9 reshuffle. The committee was set up amid brisk
relations in 2004.
"North Korea has removed the economic cooperation committee, and the South will
abolish the humanitarian cooperation bureau -- these are a portrait of
inter-Korean relations at this moment," Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the
University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said.
Yang noted the restructuring contravenes the Lee government's pledge to
prioritize humanitarian issues, such as separated families, defectors and South
Korean soldiers held in North Korea.
The unification ministry plans to create a new section called the Political
Analysis Office to better examine North Korean internal politics and regional
issues. With the restructuring, the ministry will be comprised of two offices and
two bureaus, compared to the current one office and three bureau system, the
officials said.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)