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S. Korea suspends tangerine shipment to N. Korea for first time in decade
SEOUL, Dec. 26 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's tangerine shipment to North Korea will be suspended for the first time in 10 years this winter, as Seoul refused funding the shipment amid frozen inter-Korean relations, officials said Friday.
The provincial government of the semi-tropical island of Jeju has sent more than 10,000 tons of tangerines to North Korea every winter since 1998, with the central government paying for about half the cost.
But the Unification Ministry rejected this year's motion for funding in the midst of growing tension across the border, officials from Jeju and the ministry said.
"We can't carry out the project this year," Yoon Chang-hwan, a Jeju official in charge of tangerine policy, said over the telephone. "It is not a situation in which we can collect money to send them on our own -- the government did not allow them to be sent."
Jeju Island had requested 2 billion won (US$1.55 million) from the Unification Ministry to ship 10,000 tons of tangerines, a local specialty that does not grow in North Korea's cold weather, Yoon said.
The humanitarian project started when inter-Korean relations warmed after then President Kim Dae-jung took office in 1998. Kim, who held the first-ever inter-Korean summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000.
But in the past year, North Korea cut off dialogue with the South in reaction to conservative President Lee Myung-bak's demands for improved in human rights conditions in the communist country and his toughened stance on the North's nuclear program. In addition, Seoul suspended government food aid.
Relations further eroded when a South Korean tourist was shot dead by a North Korean soldier in the North's Kumgang mountain resort in July.
On Dec. 1, the North evicted hundreds of South Koreans working in a joint industrial complex in its border town of Kaesong. It also curtailed border traffic and halted cargo train service.
In 2007, the Seoul government provided 246.6 billion won worth of food and fertilizer to Pyongyang.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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