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North Korea requests fertilizer aid
Impoverished North Korea has requested 150,000 tons of fertilizer from South Korea, months after the communist nation demanded that the U.N. World Food Program halt emergency food shipments, an official said Thursday.

The North requested last week that South Korea begin delivering the fertilizer by the end of the month in time for spring, said South Korean Vice Unification Minister Rhee Bong-jo.

The Seoul government "plans to determine its position after reviewing various situations, taking necessary procedures," Rhee told reporters.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that the North asked for an additional 300,000 tons to be delivered later in the year. Government officials said they couldn't confirm the report.

South Korea has periodically sent the North rice and fertilizer. Last year, it sent 500,000 tons of rice and 350,000 tons of fertilizer. From 1999 through 2005, South Korea sent nearly 2 million tons of fertilizer to the North, Rhee said.

The appeal for aid comes after the North said its food situation had improved and demanded an end to international food aid, instead requesting long-term development assistance.

North Korea has relied on foreign handouts to feed its 23 million people since disclosing in the mid-1990s that state-run farms had collapsed after the loss of Soviet assistance and decades of mismanagement. A resulting famine is believed to have killed 2 million people.

In December, the WFP shut down its programs that had been feeding some 6 million North Koreans, also halting the intensive monitoring that was requested by international donors to ensure the food reached those in need.

South Korean food aid — delivered directly to the North Korean government rather than through international aid groups — comes with less stringent monitoring requirements, raising concern that it might be diverted to the communist regime's military or elite.

However, the South Korean government insists its donations are delivered to ordinary citizens.

South Korea's fertilizer aid "has greatly helped North Korea enhance its agricultural productivity and improve its food situation," Rhee said Thursday.

The North's appeal comes amid deadlocked international efforts to persuade the communist country to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

The talks, which involve the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States, have made no progress in implementing a breakthrough agreement in September in which the North pledged to end its nuclear programs in exchange for aid and security assurances.
Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-02-10
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=142209