North Korea seeks 500,000 tonnes of rice from South
Sun Jul 10, 2005
SEOUL, July 10 (Reuters) - North Korea, which is battling a severe food shortage, has asked for 500,000 tonnes of rice from the South at economic talks held in Seoul, a Unification Ministry official said on Sunday.
The talks open a channel of direct communication between the North and South and coincide with a visit to the region of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is trying to end North Korea's nuclear ambitions through a negotiated settlement.
North Korea and the United States said on Saturday that Pyongyang had agreed to return to six-country nuclear talks after a break of more than a year.
Vice ministers from South and North Korea are meeting for the 10th round of economic cooperation talks in the South Korean capital -- the first such contact in 13 months -- but part of a flurry of activity involving the North in recent months.
"The North asked for 500,000 tonnes of rice," a Unification Ministry official said by telephone.
South Korea has provided 400,000 tonnes of rice in recent years. Seoul has said it would be willing to match what had been given in previous years.
The economic talks, which also involve discussions on linking railway and highways across the fortified border, are scheduled to end on Monday.
Although there has been some improvement since the famine in the 1990s when an estimated one million people died of starvation, North Korea continues to have trouble feeding its 22.5 million people, the U.N.'s World Food Programme has said.
South Korea has been shipping 150,000 tonnes of fertiliser to the North after completing the supply of 200,000 tonnes last month. Seoul has hoped the humanitarian aid may help convince the North to make progress on talks to end its nuclear weapons programmes.
The two Koreas resumed high-level contacts in May after Pyongyang broke off all dialogue last year in anger over a secret airlift of 468 North Korean refugees from Vietnam by the South.
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