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U.S. Withholds Food Shipments from North Korea
The United States has not sent any food aid to North Korea this year, but denies it is using the shipments as leverage on Pyongyang’s nuclear program, the Wall Street Journal reported today (see GSN, May 19). Assistance is being withheld due to concerns on whether the food is reaching the people who need it, and to competing aid demands in Africa, administration officials said. “Our policy is to help the North Korean people with humanitarian assistance, regardless of any political dispute,” said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. North Korea is not likely to agree, experts said. “On face value, it looks like (food is being used as) a weapon,” Joel Wit, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. The U.S. Agency for International Development sent nearly 700,000 tons of aid to North Korea in 1999. Last year, the government sent 50,000 tons of wheat, maize, beans and other foodstuff. “The administration has made no decision about food-aid contributions for North Korea for 2005,” the agency said (Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal, May 20). Meanwhile, the Russian Interfax news agency reported that North Korea might be willing to return to the six-nation negotiations in June, according to the Associated Press. While South Korean officials could not confirm the report, they expressed optimism following talks this week with their counterparts from Pyongyang, the Associated Press reported. The two nations agreed in a statement to “cooperate for peace on the Korean Peninsula.” They also plan Cabinet-level meetings within a month in Seoul, according to AP. “Not only did the North listen, but they have expressed understanding of our government’s stance [on the nuclear issue], and said that it will give the issue more study,” said chief South Korean delegate Rhee Bong-jo (Paul Alexander, Associated Press/Yahoo!Asia, May 20). Elsewhere, a U.S. Senate advisory committee said China must step up pressure on North Korea if efforts to halt its nuclear weapons work are to succeed, Reuters reported. Washington “must demand that (China) make a choice — either help out or face the possibility of other nuclear neighbors,” according to a report from the Republican Policy Committee. “Helping the United States would include participating fully in the quarantine of North Korea; tolerating Japanese, South Korean and Taiwanese missile defense programs and doing nothing to pressure the South Koreans to agree to a confederation with North Korea,” the report states. A North Korean nuclear missile test could lead to increased cooperation on missile defense by the United States and its allies in Asia, permanent placement of additional U.S. sea and land forces in the region, and South Korean military mobilization and arms purchases, according to the report. Alternately, Seoul out of fear might develop “some kind of confederation with the North” and seek removal of U.S. forces from South Korea, the paper states (Reuters/New York Times, May 20).
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