Red Cross seeks direct aid supply to North Korea

Red Cross seeks direct aid supply to North Korea

SEOUL (Agencies): Red Cross officials in South Korea yesterday sought talks to speed up food aid to North Korea as diplomats from the United States and the two Koreas prepared to meet again over landmark peace talks.

Kang Young-hoon, president of the South Korean Red Cross, proposed to his Northern counterpart that Red Cross officials hold talks for the "speedy and smooth" delivery of food and other relief materials.

A South Korean Red Cross statement said Kang made the proposal in a message delivered via a "hot line" linking the two organizations.

It came only hours before the United States and the two Koreas were to resume discussions in New York aimed at winning Pyongyang's unqualified agreement to join peace talks with its arch-rival, Seoul.

In a similar meeting on Wednesday, delegates from the three countries held an inconclusive meeting, but all sides reported progress and said they hoped to settle the issue yesterday.

The meeting was called to hear Pyongyang's formal response to a year-old U.S.-South Korean proposal for four-party peace talks, in which China would also participate.

North Korean representatives essentially told U.S. and South Korean diplomats they accepted the peace talks proposal, but then tied that acceptance to a new demand for international assistance to meet severe food shortages, U.S. officials said.

But Seoul and Washington officials said they thought Pyongyang would eventually accept the peace talks, which are to work out a lasting peace on the Korean peninsula to replace the truce agreement that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

"North Korea is desperate for food now. It can't afford walking away from the question of peace talks and delay relief supplies," said Kim Hak-joon, former presidential policy adviser in Seoul and now the dean of the University of Inchon.

In Seoul, Kang yesterday called for a Red Cross meeting as soon as possible in Panmunjom, the only border-crossing point along the Demilitarized Zone bisecting the peninsula.

The South Korean Red Cross has made 14 relief shipments since November 1995 to North Korea, including US$1 million worth of potatoes and vegetable seed this month.

South Korean religious and other civic groups have pledged to raise $20 million over the next two months to buy 110,000 tons of corn. All private aid shipments must be channeled through the Red Cross.

Meanwhile in Geneva, a spokeswoman for the World Food Program (WFP) said here yesterday that North Korea is on the brink of famine with food stocks set to run out at the end of the month.

"We are really on the edge of famine. The government said recently that there would be enough until summer, but now the authorities are saying that there will be nothing left at the end of the month," spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume told a press briefing.

Conditions in the non-agricultural north of the country were particularly severe, she said, adding that starving North Koreans were forced to eat tree bark which brought on intestinal bleeding.

The WFP, which launched an appeal on April 2 for $95.5 million has so far received $34 million.

"That's a fast response but given the urgency of the situation, not fast enough. We need money as quickly as possible if we are to avert a catastrophe," she said.

Food rations are at near starvation levels, with government handing out 100 grams per day to individuals, compared to 450 grams per day before the outbreak of the food crisis, sparked by severe flooding over the past two years and collapse of the country's economy.

The WFP aims to distribute 60,000 tons of food in May, Berthiaume said, reminding that the funds appeal was for 203,600 tons of food for 4.7 million people, including small children.

A first U.S. ship, the Galveston Bay, is due to arrive in North Korea around May 3 or 4 carrying 13,500 tons of corn and soya-corn.

A second U.S. shipment of 6,600 tons of rice and 8,600 tons of corn and soya-corn is planned for around May 20, she said.

The WFP is buying 26,000 tons of rice regionally and 660 tons of vegetable seeds with $8.4 million donated by the European Commission.