South Korea sees no large-scale aid for North

SEOUL, Oct. 18 (Yonhap) -- South Korea is not considering providing any
large-scale aid to the impoverished North despite Pyongyang's official request
for humanitarian assistance, a senior government official said Sunday.

North Korea presented the request during Red Cross talks over cross-border family
reunions on Friday, its first official call for aid after President Lee Myung-bak
took office last year. Pyongyang did not specify what kind of humanitarian aid it
wants from the South, which responded that it would review the request.
When political relations thrived with liberal governments in Seoul, the South
customarily sent hundreds of thousands of tons of rice and fertilizer annually to
the North on occasions of reunions for families separated by the 1950-53 Korean
War. But massive aid came to a halt after the conservative Lee took power with
his policy priority on the termination of the North's nuclear program.
"In the current situation, it's difficult to provide large-scale aid," the
high-level official at the Unification Ministry told reporters at an informal
meeting, requesting anonymity.
"The government will consider (small-scale) assistance for vulnerable groups
there like infants and children," he said.
The remarks mirrored Seoul's unwavering position to condition inter-Korean
exchanges on progress in the North's denuclearization. South Korea has also been
consistently backing U.N. punitive sanctions imposed over the North's nuclear
test in May, which aims to cut cash flows and outside aid to the country so as to
stem its funding to atomic and missile programs.
Large-scale rice and fertilizer aid "goes beyond the boundary of purely
humanitarian assistance," the official said. "In the current situation, to
provide aid at such a level is far from the government's policy principle toward
North Korea."
The official said the ministry will collect opinions from the legislature and
other government agencies during an Oct. 23 parliamentary audit session on the
ministry.
Regarding the kind of amount of aid Seoul might give, a different official, also
on condition of anonymity, said less than five tons of corn aid was expected.
At the Red Cross talks, South Korea proposed holding family reunions next month
and around the traditional Lunar New Year's holiday of Seol in February. North
Korea raised the humanitarian issue to go in tandem with reunion events.
The most recent round of family reunions, held in late September at Mount Kumgang
on the North's east coast, was the first in nearly two years.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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