The United States will give North Korea 500,000 metric tons of food aid over the next year after the countries agreed on a “substantial improvement in monitoring” the food’s distribution, administration officials said yesterday.
The first shipment, planned for next month, will end a two-year suspension of assistance to the reclusive state because of U.S. concerns that the food was being diverted by Kim Jong-il’s government and not reaching those in need.
“The two sides have agreed on terms for a substantial improvement in monitoring and access in order to allow for confirmation of receipt by the intended recipients,” the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) said in a statement.
The agreement to resume food aid to the impoverished country of 23 million is a result of weeks of intense negotiations between U.S. and North Korean officials. Although the talks coincided with nuclear negotiations, the administration insisted the two issues were completely separate.
USAID officials said about 400,000 tons will be distributed by the U.N. World Food Program (WFP) and the rest by U.S. nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
“The United States and [North Korea] have agreed on a framework to allow WFP and NGO staff broad geographic access to populations in need and the ability to effectively monitor the distribution of U.S. commodities,” the USAID said.
“The exact commodity mix and delivery schedules will be based on the outcome of a joint needs assessment to be conducted in coming weeks,” it added.
Substantial crop damage caused by floods, rising food prices and diminished foreign donations have worsened North Korea’s food crisis in the past year.
“International organizations and experts have expressed concern about a severe food shortage in North Korea, and the [North] has explained to the United States that it faces a major shortfall in food supplies,” the USAID said.
Before the United States suspended donations in 2006, it had provided about 2 million tons through the WFP since 1995. But it suspended the assistance after Pyongyang asked representatives of the WFP, through which much of the aid had been channeled, to leave.
The aid comes as Washington is putting more pressure on North Korea to come up with a declaration of its nuclear activities, part of a broader multilateral deal aimed at getting Pyongyang to abandon all of its nuclear programs in exchange for economic and diplomatic incentives.
North Korea earlier this month gave the United Sates eight boxes of documents from its nuclear weapons program dating back to 1990 — a move that U.S. officials said clears the way for the North to be removed from the blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism.
White House press secretary Dana Perino signaled that the administration was ready to resume aid earlier this week.
“The president thinks that the government is certainly diverting food to the military and not giving it to the people,” she said. “But outside of politics, the president’s heart hurts when he knows that people are starving, and especially because — especially for children, who are maybe trying to go to school.”
North Korea has resorted to international assistance to feed its people since the mid-1990s due to natural disasters and mismanagement. The United Nations has warned that North Korea urgently needs outside aid to avert a worse humanitarian disaster.
South Korea’s foreign minister said Thursday his government is also willing to talk with North Korea about food aid.
Relations between the two Koreas worsened after South Korea’s new conservative government was inaugurated in February with a pledge to take a tougher line on the North,
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
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