U.S. to consider restarting food aid to N. Korea if monitoring permitted: envoy

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 (Yonhap) -- The United States will consider resuming food aid
to North Korea if the North allows monitoring of food distribution, a U.S. envoy
has said.

At a news conference Wednesday in Geneva, Robert King, U.S. special envoy for
North Korean human rights, said, "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," according to a transcript released by the
State Department Friday.
"The United States does not link humanitarian assistance to any political
considerations," said King, who attended a U.N. Human Rights Council forum in
Geneva.
He took office last month under the North Korean Human Rights Act, which calls
for providing financial aid to help improve democracy and human rights conditions
in the North and accommodation of North Korean defectors into the U.S. The act
went into effect in 2004 and was extended by Congress for another four years in
September last year.
The U.S., which had provided more than 2 million tons of food aid to the North in
the past decade or so, suspended food aid in March 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.
Humanitarian food aid to North Korea by international relief organizations was
also suspended early this year when the North Korean government expelled
international monitors amid escalating tensions over the North's rocket launch.
The U.S. had delivered 169,000 tons of food to North Korea from May 2008 to March
after Washington pledged to provide 500,000 tons of food to help alleviate the
North's chronic food shortage.
The World Food Program has said that North Korea will need more than 800,000 tons
of food from abroad to feed its 24 million people this year.
Amid thawing relations with the North after months of provocations earlier this
year, the U.S. appears ready to resume food aid; a group of North Korean
officials visited Los Angeles in August to meet with U.S. relief organizations.
South Korea has also stopped shipping food aid to the North. The conservative Lee
Myung-bak government demanded as a quid pro quo that the North make progress in
the six-party talks on dismantling its nuclear weapons programs.
Lee's liberal predecessors each year shipped about 400,000 tons of food and as
much fertilizer to North Korea for the past decade.
King said he has limited information on a reported malnutrition problem in North
Korea.
"It's very clear that, in the past, there was a malnutrition problem," he said.
"We are very limited in our ability to assess what's going on inside North Korea.
So I'm not really in a position to comment on whether that's true or not."
The envoy called on the international community to urge the reclusive communist
state to establish a human rights organization, join international rights
covenants and come out for dialogue on rights issues.
"I think it is important that we press in those directions as well," he said.
The former Bush administration had been criticized for its failure to raise the
human rights issue in the six-party talks dealing with North Korea's
denuclearization.
"I would hope there's space for dialogue, but I would hope there is also dialogue
and progress on the nuclear issue, which is a critical issue that needs to be
resolved, and I would hope there is dialogue and effort to deal with human rights
concerns," King said.
He said he will "contact the North Korean government officials and request that
they give me a visa and that I be able to talk with government officials."
King replaced Jay Lefkowitz, who quit earlier this year after a four-year term.
In his final report, Lefkowitz in January urged President Barack Obama to
emphasize human rights in the six-party talks and proposed that the U.S. and its
allies link any aid to Pyongyang with human rights improvements.
Lefkowitz was denied access to North Korea while in office, although he
frequently visited South Korea and China to write reports.
hdh@yna.co.kr
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