N. Korea accepts S. Korea's monitoring for flour aid

SEOUL, Aug. 18 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has granted rare access to its daycare center and three other facilities by South Korean civic monitors over Seoul's recent food aid, the head of a monitoring team said Thursday.
The seven monitors visited Sariwon, a city south of the capital Pyongyang, earlier this month to ensure 300 tons of flour aid had reached children and other intended beneficiaries, said Lee woon-sik, who led the monitoring team.
It was the first flour shipment to North Korea since the North's deadly shelling of a front-line South Korean island last year, and the first batch of 2,500 tons of flour that a coalition of South Korean civic groups plans to deliver to the North by next month.
The monitors videotaped the four North Korean facilities where Seoul's aid was stored, Lee said, adding he plans to conduct additional monitoring in the isolated country. He said his groups gave the videotape to the Unification Ministry for analysis.
The ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, said it will keep a close eye on the situation before making its overall assessment on monitoring in the North.
The latest move comes amid widespread allegations that the North could divert outside food aid to its elite and military, a key backbone of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's rule.
In July, the European Commission said it had struck a deal with North Korea on a tough monitoring mechanism as it announced a decision to provide the North with aid worth 10 million euros to help feed 650,000 people.
Many defectors in South Korea claimed that they never received any flour and rice aid provided by South Korea.
The North has relied on foreign handouts since the late 1990s when it suffered a massive famine that was estimated to have killed 2 million people.