U.S. to ship 21,000 tons in food aid to N. Korea by year-end: State Dept By Hwang Doo-hyong

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 (Yonhap) -- The United States said Tuesday it will ship 21,000 tons of food aid to North Korea by the end of the year as part of 500,000 tons in humanitarian aid promised earlier this year.

"Our humanitarian program will continue," State Department spokesman Sean
McCormack said. "The 21,000 metric tons will arrive at the end of this month."
McCormack said the food aid will be delivered through the World Food Program and
other nongovernmental organizations.
The U.S. in May pledged to provide up to 500,000 tons of food aid to the North,
but has delivered about a quarter.
The last shipment was made in August as North Korea halted the disablement of its
nuclear facilities in defiance of Washington's failure to delist it as a state
sponsor of terrorism.
Once off the list, the North resumed disabling its facilities in October, but the
latest round of the six-party talks failed to produce an agreement on how to
verify what the North declared as its nuclear facilities in June.
The spokesman said a U.S. fact-finding mission recently concluded a North Korean
tour on assuring transparency in distribution of the food aid.
"The nature of this mission was to find the facts and to try to see how
implementation of our commitments to provide half-a-million metric tons of food
aid were going," he said. "Thus far, we have delivered about 128,000 metric tons
or so, give or take, under that program. And we're still trying to work through
some issues that we saw on the ground."
He said his department is seeking some Korean-speaking staff "that can work in
the WFP portion of the food distribution program."
"Our humanitarian efforts continue, but we want to make sure, as a government,
that the American tax dollars that provide this humanitarian aid ultimately are
being put to good use," he said. "And that means that the people on the ground
who need that food aid are going to get it. And part of that is making sure that
we have a distribution system in which we have confidence."
The international community has expressed doubts about the food distribution
system in the reclusive communist state amid reports that much of the food aid
might have been funneled to the military and the power elite. Millions are said to
be suffering from food shortages due to chronic floods and failed policies.
The WFP announced earlier this month that North Korea will need more than 800,000
tons in additional food aid from abroad to feed its 21 million people next year
despite a rather good harvest this year.
South Korea, one of two major food donors to the North along with the U.S., has
shipped no food aid to the North since early this year, when the pro-U.S.,
conservative Lee Myung-bak government took office.
Lee's liberal predecessors had provided more than 400,000 tons of food and as
much fertilizer to the North annually virtually unconditionally over the past
decade.
Lee says he will link economic and other inter-Korean cooperation projects to
North Korea's denuclearization.
South Korean officials said North Korea is not in a dire situation requiring
emergency food aid, although it is ready to discuss such aid if the North makes a
request.
North Korea has said it can live without the South's help, threatening to turn
the South into ashes and expelling most South Korean officials and businesspeople
in the joint industrial complex and a resort in the North, citing the Lee
government's hardline North Korea policy.
hdh@yna.co.kr
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