S. Korea has no plan to resume rice aid to North despite thawing ties

SEOUL, Aug. 27 (Yonhap) -- South Korea has no immediate plan to resume rice and
fertilizer aid to North Korea, despite the North's series of fence-mending moves,
officials said Thursday.
Seoul suspended government-to-government aid last year as Pyongyang boycotted
dialogue with the conservative Lee Myung-bak administration. As North Korea was
shifting to a conciliatory mode in recent weeks, speculation grew that Seoul may
respond with rice and fertilizer aid.
"The government's position over food and fertilizer remains unchanged. To resume
massive food and fertilizer aid, there should be consultations first between the
two governments," a ranking Unification Ministry official told reporters at a
background briefing.
The official said the ongoing inter-Korean Red Cross talks aimed at arranging
reunions of separated families "have nothing to do with" the kind of
consultations Seoul requires over aid resumption. The family reunion talks, the
first such dialogue in nearly two years, are underway at the North's Mount
Kumgang resort.
Since the landmark first inter-Korean summit in 2000, South Korea's liberal
governments have sent 300,000-500,000 tons of rice to North Korea almost every
year. Even when North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in 2006, South Korea
continued the aid, albeit at a lower level of 100,000 tons for that year.
Fertilizer aid has also continued since 1999. Both items were entirely suspended
after Lee took office in February last year.
But non-food aid, like medicine and medical equipment for children and mothers,
continued through international organizations like UNICEF and WHO.
Seoul also recently resumed a small extent of humanitarian aid through
non-governmental organizations.
Another ministry official, on customary condition of anonymity, said that besides
the nuclear issue and progress in inter-Korean dialogue, South Korea will also
consider North Korea's food situation and local public opinion in resuming the
rice and fertilizer aid.
During a European tour last month, Lee said, "Even if we give fertilizer and food
to the North, that doesn't guarantee good inter-Korean relations."
He also said Seoul's primary objective is to "make North Korea give up nuclear
weapons."
The unification ministry and U.N. agencies expect North Korea's harvest will fall
short of consumption by more than 1 million tons of food this year. About 8.7
million North Koreans, out of the country's population of 24 million, will run
short of food, they say.
Pyongyang, under U.N. sanctions, has extended a series of conciliatory moves
toward Seoul this month, restoring a hotline, lifting cross-border traffic
restrictions and agreeing to resume reunions of families separated by the 1950-53
Korean War.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)