U.S. mulling fact-finding mission to N. Korea over food shortages

(ATTN: UPDATES with S. Korean official's comments throughout; ADDS background)
By Sam Kim and Lee Haye-ah
SEOUL, May 17 (Yonhap) -- The United States will soon decide whether to send a team of officials to North Korea to look into food shortages in the communist country, a senior U.S. envoy said Tuesday, a development that may enhance the mood for restarting dialogue.
"We will be making a decision on that in the next few days and it will be announced from Washington," Stephen Bosworth, U.S. special envoy on North Korea policies, told reporters when asked if Robert King, special ambassador on North Korean human rights, would travel to the communist state on a fact-finding mission.
Bosworth was speaking to reporters following his one-hour meeting with Wi Sung-lac, South Korea's chief delegate to stalled six-party talks that also include China, Russia, Japan and North Korea.
"We had a good discussion today of the North Korean request for food assistance and I think we have largely reached a common view on that and we will be addressing that as we move ahead," he said.
A senior South Korean foreign ministry official said in a separate meeting with reporters that his government agrees on the need to assess food situations in North Korea. He spoke on the condition of anonymity citing policy.
"Our view is that it is useful to investigate something like that," the official said, requesting anonymity.
South Korea has suspended food aid to North Korea since a conservative government took power in 2008, demanding Pyongyang follow through with denuclearization steps.
Seoul has been toughening its stance on the halted flow of food and other resources into North Korea since May last year when it held Pyongyang responsible for the deadly sinking of one of its warships.
"We're neither comfortable or uncomfortable" with the possible U.S. fact-finding mission to North Korea, the official said, dismissing links between food aid and six-party dialogue.
The U.S. shelved its food assistance to North Korea in 2009, a year when Pyongyang went ahead with its second nuclear test and prompted the U.N. to toughen its sanctions on the country.
Following a recent trip to North Korea, U.N. food agencies estimated that the country would need about 400,000 tons of food from abroad to stem a food crisis for its most vulnerable groups such as children and pregnant women.
The South Korean official said the U.S. fact-finding mission, if conducted, would clarify doubts that arose after the U.N. agencies, including the World Food Program, issued the report in March.
He refrained, however, from commenting on how South Korea should react if the U.S. came up with a plan to resume food shipments to North Korea after the King-led trip, citing its speculative nature.
North Korea has relied heavily on international handouts since a massive famine swept the country in the mid 1990s. But international aid has dried up significantly in the wake of a series of nuclear and missile tests that Pyongyang has conducted in defiance of warnings. Critics also say the North may be hoarding food ahead of 2012, during which it plans to celebrate the centenary of the birth of its charismatic late founder, Kim Il-sung.
Tuesday's meeting between Wi and Bosworth followed a proposal last month by China that the nuclear envoys of the two Koreas first hold dialogue to pave the way for direct U.S.-North Korea talks and, eventually, the resumption of the six-party talks.
The multilateral talks, designed to compensate the North for nuclear dismantlement, have not been held since late 2008.
North Korea, which closely coordinates its policies with China, has yet to produce a formal proposal for inter-Korean dialogue on its nuclear arms programs. Pyongyang has long argued its nuclear development is only a deterrent against U.S. aggression.
In November last year, the country unveiled a modern uranium enrichment facility that could be used as a second track to building nuclear bombs. Seoul and Washington say the activity must be stopped before the six-party talks can reopen.
"We believe that this is an activity on the part of North Koreans which is illegal under various U.N. Security Council resolutions and is contrary to various undertakings that we have received from them and that other countries have received from them," Bosworth said.
"So on the basic question of the program, we don't think there is any ambiguity and we certainly have no ambivalence on our side," he added.
samkim@yna.co.kr