S Korea to halt food aid to North http://www.ndtv.com/template/template.asp?template=koreanukes&slug=S+Korea+to+halt+food+aid+to+North&id=89938&callid=1
Saturday, July 8, 2006 (Seoul):
South Korea has said it will withhold food and fertilizer shipments to impoverished North Korea until the missile crisis is resolved, even as it pledged to hold high-level talks with the communist regime next week.
Meanwhile, a draft UN resolution on sanctions against Pyongyang could be put to a vote ON Saturday, as regional powers moved to coordinate their response to North Korea's test-firing of seven missiles.
US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, dispatched to Northeast Asia in the wake of the missile barrage, was in Seoul on Saturday for talks with Chun Young-woo, South Korea's top negotiator in nuclear talks.
Missile tests
After talks with Chinese officials in Beijing on Friday, Hill said the Chinese, the North's top allies, were displeased by the missile tests.
"They were very clear in their views of the North Korean missile launches, very clear that they have no interest in seeing this happen and do not regard this in any way positively," Hill said. He was expected to travel from South Korea to Japan on Sunday.
It remained unclear whether North Korea was planning to fire more missiles after the tests on Wednesday, which caused no damage or injuries when the missiles landed in the sea.
South Korean officials said another long-range missile may be at a launch site, but the latest intelligence showed no signs the reclusive regime was getting ready for more tests.
Nuclear talks
South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted a North Korean diplomat as saying North Korea is willing to return to six-nation nuclear talks if it is allowed to withdraw its money frozen in accounts of a bank blacklisted by the United States.
Han Song Ryol, deputy chief of North Korea's mission to the United Nations in New York, made the remark, renewing the North's long-standing demand that the US lift financial restrictions imposed on a Macau bank for allegedly aiding the North's illicit activities.
"Removing the freeze on Macau funds is the minimum threshold to resumption of talks," Han said. "If there is such a will, then how we talk, whether bilaterally or through six-party talks, is not important."
Aid shipments
Japan and the United States have led an effort for the UN to impose sanctions, but China and Russia have called for softer measures.
On Friday, Japan circulated a draft resolution that would order countries to "take those steps necessary" to keep the North from acquiring items that could be used for its missile program. Diplomats said it could be put to a vote on Saturday.
South Korea, which has worked for warmer ties with Pyongyang since a 2000 North-South summit, has withheld aid shipments and rejecting a Northern request for military talks, but also announced it would hold Cabinet-level meetings with the North next week.
Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok said Seoul would hold off on plans to send 500,000 tons of rice and 100,000 tons of fertilizer to North Korea.
"This will continue until there is an exit out of the missile problem," Lee's spokesperson, Yang Chang-seok, quoted him as saying, without explaining what would constitute an exit.
Poverty stricken
The North had requested 450,000 tons of fertilizer this year, of which the South has already shipped 350,000 tons. Pyongyang, which is largely dependent on handouts of food and other supplies to maintain its poverty-stricken population, has also asked for 500,000 tons of rice.
South Korea also turned down a North Korean proposal to hold military talks this week, saying the time was not right. But Cabinet-level talks originally scheduled to start next Tuesday in the southern city of Busan were to go ahead, officials said.
The North, however, said it had the right to test missiles.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency on Friday quoted Choe Myong Nam, councilor at the North's UN mission in Geneva, as saying the launches were successful and could be continued.
"It's an unfair logic to say that somebody can do something and others cannot. The same logic applies to nuclear possession," Choe said. The missile launches are "not intended to strike anyone and it's the North position that missile launches could be continued," he said.
On Thursday, the United States said the world must speak with one voice in pressing North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons and return to multinational talks.
Much of the focus is on China, which provides oil and other economic assistance to North Korea and is seen as a critical player in diplomacy with Pyongyang. The US has urged Beijing to exert leverage on North Korea, though so far Chinese efforts have been largely limited to diplomatic appeals.
China, North Korea's closest ally, and Russia, which has been trying to re-establish Soviet-era ties with the Stalinist state, showed little interest in sanctions. (AP)