By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, March 31 (Yonhap) -- The United States has not yet made any decision on the provision of food aid to North Korea despite United Nations appeals for aid to the North as it suffers from severe food shortages, the State Department said Thursday.

   "Our review on the food situation is ongoing, but nothing else than that," Mark Toner, State Department deputy spokesman, told reporters. "We took part in the World Food Program meeting in Rome, but I am not aware of any additional meeting."

   Toner also said, "Not yet," when asked if the U.S. has any plans to send officials or NGOs to North Korea to assess the food situation there.

   The United Nations last week appealed for the provision of 430,000 tons of food to North Korea to feed 6 million people stricken by floods and severe winter weather. A U.N. monitoring team concluded a fact-finding mission in North Korea early this month.

   Some say North Korea is exaggerating its food shortages to hoard food in preparation for its distribution on the 100th anniversary of the birth of its late leader Kim Il-sung, the father of current leader, Kim Jong-il, which falls on April 15 next year.

   U.S. food aid to the North was suspended in early 2009 amid heightened tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests and controversy over the transparency of food distribution.

   Washington pledged to provide 500,000 tons of food in 2008, but delivered only 169,000 tons before the shipments were suspended in March 2009.

   Toner, meanwhile, said that the upcoming resignation of Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg will not change the U.S. policy on North Korea.

   "He does have a lot of experience and knowledge on that part of the world," the spokesman said. "But our policy is our policy, and that keeps moving forward."

   Some South Korean media have expressed concern about the possibility of Steinberg's resignation adversely affecting the U.S.'s North Korea policy.

   Steinberg, who will soon move on to head the Maxwell School at Syracuse University in New York, is said to have been involved deeply in North Korea, China and other Asian issues.

   Steinberg will likely be replaced by Bill Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs who is an Arabic-speaking expert on the Middle East. The change comes amid heightening tensions in North Africa and the Middle East in the aftermath of popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt that toppled decades-old authoritarian regimes, spreading to Libya and several other countries.

   Steinberg, deputy national security adviser for former President Bill Clinton, has reportedly been alienated by other senior State Department officials, mostly chosen by Secretary Hillary Clinton, who had won the exclusive right from Obama to appoint her staff.

   Steinberg seems to be the only prominent figure appointed to the State Department from Obama's national security team in the 2008 campaign.

   hdh@yna.co.kr
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