SEOUL, Nov. 3 (Yonhap) -- The European Union has no immediate plan to offer more food aid to North Korea, because the communist country can expect to ease its chronic food shortages with the fall harvest, an EU lawmaker said Thursday after a trip to the North.

   Christian Ehler, chairman of the European Parliament's delegation for relations on the Korean Peninsula, warned, however, that the North could face severe food shortages next year if its harvest falls short of this year's.

   Ehler arrived in Seoul this week following a four-day visit to North Korea.

   Asked whether North Korea sought more food aid from the EU during his trip there, Ehler said yes.

   "From our point of view, however, there is not much need of food aid in practical terms," the lawmaker said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency on the sidelines of a forum in Seoul. "But in terms of productivity, if harvest is bad, the result will be devastating."

  


In July, the EU announced plans to provide North Korea with 10 million euros in emergency food aid.

   South Korea suspended its annual aid of 400,000 tons of rice in 2008 when conservative President Lee Myung-bak took office with a policy of linking assistance to progress in efforts to get North Korea to give up its nuclear programs.

   Inter-Korean relations plunged to one of their lowest levels last year, following the North's two deadly military attacks on the South.

   Seoul is also known to have reservations about Washington's move to resume food aid to Pyongyang, which has not shown any clear sign of keeping its earlier denuclearization commitment.

   South Korean officials said they could give large-scale aid to North Korea if Pyongyang demonstrated its commitment to denuclearization, a key precondition set by both Seoul and Washington for the resumption of long-stalled six-party talks on ending Pyongyang's nuclear programs.

   Ehler acknowledged monitoring concerns about food aid to North Korea, but he argued that the international community must help the impoverished communist nation feed its people.

   "Because this is in international terms a non-political issue, everyone would be obliged to engage in talks for food aid," Ehler said.

  "We would have to divide between the intentions of the regime and the mere question of whether food aid is needed."

   kdh@yna.co.kr
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