US considers resuming food aid to NKorea
WASHINGTON (AP) — Aid groups fear that many North Koreans face starvation after a harsh winter, and the United States is considering resumption of food aid to the country it regards as a rogue state that presents vexing foreign policy problems.
Special envoy Stephen Bosworth told the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on Tuesday that the Obama administration is assessing North Korea's need for assistance after the reclusive Asian nation requested it.
The U.S. government suspended food handouts to the impoverished North in 2009 after monitors were expelled, and a resumption would be politically sensitive, because of concerns it could be seen as a reward for bad behavior. In the past eight months, Pyongyang has been accused of launching two unprovoked military attacks on rival South Korea and has revealed a uranium enrichment program that could provide it a new means of generating material for nuclear weapons.
The top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, Kurt Campbell, told lawmakers that no decision has yet been made about resuming aid, and any decision would be taken in close coordination with South Korea.
Asked whether food aid could ultimately ease economic pressure on the North, which would effectively allow it to put more resources into its nuclear programs, Campbell said North Korea had shown historically that it was willing to allow "enormous suffering" among its people. Many starved during the 1990s, Campbell said.
"The choice here is whether these people are allowed to starve. It's a humanitarian issue, not a political one," he said.
Five nongovernment U.S.-based aid groups who visited North Korea last month reported children suffering from acute malnutrition and people foraging for wild grasses and herbs. Summer floods and the bitterest winter in decades had cut principal crop harvests by more than half, and North Korean authorities estimated that food stocks would be exhausted by mid-June, the groups said.
The United Nations, which has an ongoing but underfunded food distribution program in North Korea, also is currently conducting a food needs assessment there.
Bosworth said if U.S. assistance were to be resumed, effective monitoring would ensure it reached civilians who most needed it. He noted suspicions that food could be diverted to the military.
Committee chairman Sen. John Kerry suggested that the United States launch bilateral talks with North Korea, which has long been sought by the North, to lay groundwork for the resumption of six-nation talks aimed at dismantling the communist nation's nuclear programs. The talks, also including China, South Korea, Japan and Russia, have stalled since 2009 after the North pulled out over international censure of a long-range rocket test, that was followed by a nuclear test, which have left it subject to stiff U.N. sanctions. the North has said since then, however, that it wants to resume negotiations.
"Our silence invites a dangerous situation to get worse," Kerry said.
South Korea and the Unnited States have said the North first must demonstrate its sincerity by taking concrete actions, including accepting responsibility for the sinking of a South Korean submarine that killed 46 sailors and a November artillery strike that left four people dead on a South Korean island. On Tuesday, South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak called for serious talks with the North, warning that the rivals must not repeat their "dark history," but also saying the North should abandon its nuclear programs.
Bosworth said the U.S. was not "interested in talks for the sake of talking. We want talks that lead to concrete results."
He did, however, concede that the U.S. may need to hold "bilateral conversations" with the North in order to figure out how to move forward multilaterally.
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