South Korea Set to Resume Rice Aid to North

Text of report in English by South Korean news agency Yonhap

Seoul, 22 June: South Korea will announce early next week a timetable for the shipment of 400,000 tons of rice aid to North Korea, a top Unification Ministry official said Friday.

The ministry was expected to disclose the timetable on Friday [22 June], but the US chief nuclear envoy’s sudden visit to Pyongyang on Thursday is believed to have played a role in the delay of the announcement.

South Korea is awaiting the outcome of US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill’s North Korea trip aimed at discussing the North’s implementation of a February agreement for its denuclearization. Hill is to hold a press conference in Seoul later in the day.

“We will give you a detailed timetable on the rice aid early next week, including when the first shipment will be made,” Vice Unification Minister Shin Un-sang said in a press briefing.

South Korea resumed shipments of fertilizer and other emergency aid to the North in late March, but withheld the loan of 400,000 tons of rice as an inducement for North Korea to start its nuclear dismantlement under the landmark 13 February agreement.

“So far there have been a lot of changes in the situation, and the situation is still changing,” he told reporters. “The North’s denuclearization process and inter-Korean relations are linked, which is sometimes of mutual benefit or of mutual hindrance.”

(c) 2007 BBC Monitoring Newsfile. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.