No halt in food aid to N. Korea
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North Korea has suffered food shortages since the mid 1990s
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States will donate 40,000 tonnes of agricultural commodities to North Korea, and is prepared to give as much as 60,000 tonnes more, the U.S. State Department says.
"As President Bush has said, we are prepared to help feed people in North Korea without regard to our concerns about North Korea's policies," department spokesman Richard Boucher said Tuesday.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has said the United States did not plan to use food aid as a political tool in dealing with Pyongyang, though he said more economic aid would be available if North Korea were to scrap its nuclear weapons program.
North Korea has suffered widespread food shortages since 1995 as a result of the country's mismanagement and repeated natural disasters.
The World Food Program estimates 6.4 million people in the country will need food aid this year despite a slight increase in projected harvests.
Boucher said the United States was responding to the World Food Program's appeal for its 2003 emergency feeding operation.
With the 40,000 tonne donation, the U.S. has now donated nearly 2 million tonnes of food aid to North Korea, valued at about $650 million, Boucher said.
The U.S. was the World Food Program's largest donor last year.
But Boucher said the U.S. had "serious concerns" about North Korea's restrictions on monitoring and on access to its people.
This impaired the World Food Program's ability to ensure that the food assistance got to those who needed it.
He said U.S. officials voiced those concerns directly with the North Korean mission to the United Nations last (northern) summer, but they had not responded.
