South Korea rules out food aid to North Korea

(ATTN: ADDS Foreign Ministry official's quote, details in paras 10-14)
SEOUL, July 4 (Yonhap) -- South Korea ruled out sending any government food aid to North Korea Monday as the European Union (EU) announced a plan to give emergency aid to the impoverished communist country.
Seoul had been one of the largest donors to its northern neighbor, but it has suspended the aid since a conservative government came into power in 2008 and linked denuclearization efforts by Pyongyang as preconditions to resuming cross-border exchanges.
The North's two deadly attacks on the South last year also heightened animosity against Pyongyang, sharply worsening public opinion on giving aid to the North.
"We have no plan to provide the North with large-scale government food aid," Unification Ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo said.
Still, South Korea has selectively allowed civilians to travel to the North to give humanitarian aid to infants and other vulnerable people.
The spokeswoman made the comment in response to the EU's decision to provide the North with aid worth 10 million euros to help feed 650,000 people.
"Increasingly desperate and extreme measures are being taken by the hard-hit North Koreans, including the widespread consumption of grass," the European Commission said in a statement.
The executive body of the European Union said North Korea has agreed to a strict monitoring system to make sure the aid reaches malnourished children, pregnant and breastfeeding women, the elderly and other intended beneficiaries.
The aid comes months after the U.N. food agency appealed for 430,000 tons of food aid to feed 6 million vulnerable North Korean people, a quarter of the country's population.
Officials at Seoul's Foreign Ministry downplayed the EU's decision. A ministry official called the EU's move "symbolic" because it would fall short of easing the North's food problems.
"The size of the food aid is insufficient to resolve the North's food shortage, so this is not significantly meaningful," the official told Yonhap News Agency by telephone.
However, Foreign Ministry officials said they are paying attention to how the EU's aid package will affect the U.S. government's possible resumption of food aid to North Korea.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said late last month, after talks with South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan, that Washington has made no decision on providing food aid to the North, renewing calls for Pyongyang to address concerns that food aid may be diverted to its military or communist party elite.
Washington sent a delegation to North Korea in May to assess the food situation.
The North has relied on international handouts since the late 1990s when it suffered a massive famine that was estimated to have killed 2 million people.
However, the outside aid has dwindled following the North's missile and nuclear tests and other provocations.