SEOUL (Reuters) - The U.S. government has decided to provide 100,000 tons of food aid to North Korea following a request from the World Food Program, the local Yonhap News Agency reported on Sunday.
Yonhap, in a dispatch from Washington, quoted State Department authorities as saying the delivery would be carried out within the next several months.
If realized, it will be the first such aid to North Korea by the administration of President Bush, Yonhap said.
The Bush administration, while reviewing its North Korea policy, has expressed its intention to continue humanitarian aid to the communist country and the aid could help the two countries reopen a stalled dialogue, Yonhap quoted sources as saying.
A U.N. official in North Korea said last month it was able to harvest only three million tons of crops last fall, far short of some 4.8 million tons needed, and predicted the worst situation since an acute food shortage in 1997, Yonhap said.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said in Seoul last week it would resume talks with North Korea, endorsing Seoul's "Sunshine Policy" toward its old foe.
The United States maintains 37,000 troops in the South, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War. That conflict ended in an armed truce that has never been replaced by a peace treaty, leaving the foes technically at war.
©Reuters May 12 2001 9:23PM