Seoul Rules Out Massive Aid to NK

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

National

Fri, December 8, 2023 | 09:27

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Seoul Rules Out Massive Aid to NK

Posted : 2009-10-18 17:24

Updated : 2009-10-18 17:24

By Kim Sue-young
Staff Reporter

The government is likely to commence talks this week over whether or not to send humanitarian aid to North Korea, a senior official of the Ministry of Unification said Sunday.

The administration would not offer a large amount of assistance, which goes against its North Korean policy, the official said on condition of anonymity.

"After having internal consultation and collecting public opinion, a decision on the matter will be made," he said. "But, in my opinion, large-scale assistance will not be provided."

During the inter-Korean Red Cross talks last Friday, the impoverished North asked for humanitarian aid for the first time since President Lee Myung-bak took office in February last year, and Seoul promised to review the request.

The government has reiterated that it would offer urgent humanitarian support to North Korea regardless of the political situation, but has taken a wait-and-see attitude toward sending assistance to the North on a large scale.

It has stressed that Pyongyang must give up its nuclear ambitions first.

The official said difficulties in monitoring also makes the government hesitate to offer a large amount of aid to Pyongyang.

"We cannot ask for a permit to monitor the distribution of nutrition bars provided to North Korean kids. But if there is a slight chance of misuse, we should demand monitoring," he said.

During the decade of the previous liberal administrations, the South sent a combined 3.2 million tons of rice as part of food aid to the famine-stricken North.

But the current administration, under President Lee's vision of pragmatic centrism, remains unchanged in its position to resume giving humanitarian aid to the North ― only after Pyongyang takes steps to create a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. International efforts to have North Korea rejoin the six-party denuclearization talks are under way.

The official admitted that while it was necessary to resume inter-Korean displaced family reunions this year, the government won't consider them when making its decision on aid.

The reunions had been suspended for the past 23 months since the North unilaterally cut off communication channels between the Red Cross societies of the two sides.

Last month, only 100 families from South and North Korea were given a chance to meet their long-lost families at the Mt. Geumgang resort in the North.

ksy@koreatimes.co.kr