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(2nd LD) Seoul offers corn aid to Pyongyang
SEOUL, June 30 (Yonhap) -- South Korea on Monday offered 50,000 tons of corn aid to North Korea after the famine-stricken country failed to reply to Seoul's proposed assistance.
"We will provide 50,000 tons of corn if North Korea give details as to when, where and how it wants to receive the aid," Kim Ho-nyoun, spokesman for the Unification Ministry, told reporters. "We're waiting for a positive response from the North."
Last month, Unification Minister Kim Ha-joong said he proposed through Red Cross channels operating at the truce village of Panmunjom that inter-Korean dialogue be held to discuss providing the same amount of corn aid but no answer was returned.
A North Korean working-level official reacted negatively to the minister's proposal when asked by Seoul again through the same channel last week, Kim said.
But Seoul does not consider that as Pyongyang's official position, he added.
If the North continues to keep silent on the offer, the government may consider sending aid through the U.N. World Food Program (WFP) after reviewing the upcoming result of the organization's assessment of the food situation in the communist state, the spokesman said.
South Korea sent about 400,000 tons of rice aid each year to the impoverished country over nearly a decade during the tenure of two liberal governments. Inter-Korean relations have deteriorated since South Korea's new conservative pro-U.S. government took office in February. Seoul has maintained that it would only consider giving aid if Pyongyang requests it.
North Korea has spurned President Lee Myung-bak's earlier proposal for the countries to establish permanent liaison offices in each other's capitals, heaping scorn on Lee and his government.
Seoul later softened its position, suggesting it can consider sending aid if food shortages in the North get serious.
Monday's proposal shows the government has moved a step forward from its earlier stance, under pressure from aid groups and political parties "to save North Koreans" from possibly dying en masse of starvation.
The proposal came on the same day that the WFP announced the first shipment of 500,000 tons of aid that the United States promised to send in the coming year through the WFP and non-governmental organizations has arrived in the North Korean port of Nampo.
The 50,000 tons of corn aid were promised by the former President Roh Moo-hyun but the pledge was left unfulfilled due to soaring world corn prices and other reasons.
Aid groups say North Korea may see tens of thousands of people dying of starvation in two months if there is no emergency foreign aid.
The Seoul government estimates that the North needs at least 5.42 million tons of cereals a year, but is 1.24 million tons short this year.
sshim@yna.co.kr
(END)
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