Asia-Pacific

ROK to send rice to DPRK in flood aid

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-10-25 11:19

SEOUL - The Republic of Korea (ROK) on Monday held a ceremony before sending 5,000 tons of rice to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in flood aid.

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The rice aid, originally scheduled to be sent Monday but postponed due to bad weather, came at a time when relations between Seoul and Pyongyang, once dropped to the lowest level in years following the DPRK's alleged torpedo attack on a ROKn warship, are showing signs of a thaw with various inter- Korean meetings lined up.

A freighter carrying rice will leave ROK's southern port city of Gunsan for the Chinese city of Dandong when weather conditions improve. The rice will then be delivered later this week to the northwestern DPRK city of Sinuiju, a city reeling from heavy rains in August.

Separately, 3 million cups of instant noodles were sent as planned to Dandong to be shipped to the DPRK. The government is also planning to deliver 1 million tons of cement later this month, also in flood aid. ROK's civic groups were recently given a series of rare government approval for providing separate rice aid to the flood- hit DPRK to help the country cope with damage there.

Various inter-Korean meetings are also scheduled, including talks over reviving moribund joint projects and reuniting families separated by a civil war.

It all signals a slow change to the ROK government's usually heavy-handed dealing with Pyongyang, still technically at war with Seoul following the 1950-53 Korean War, observers in Seoul said.

ROK President Lee Myung-bak, as he took office in February 2008, quickly cut a free flow of rice aid to the DPRK, which once amounted to 300,000 to 400,000 tons each year.

A hard-liner toward Pyongyang, Lee ended a decade of rapprochement under his liberal predecessors by linking aid to dismantlement of the DPRK's nuclear programs, a move that raised Pyongyang's ire.

The fatal sinking in March, which killed 46 ROK's crew, only made matters worse. As a response to the incident, Seoul in May suspended virtually all exchanges with Pyongyang, leaving a small room only for humanitarian assistance.

The government previously refused to consider rice aid, stating that the issue will be considered separately from initially planned flood aid to the DPRK. While the scheduled rice aid will evidently be a far cry from mutual bitterness on the both sides of the border in the initial aftermath of the sinking, the government here still shies away from attaching much meaning to the aid.

"The government has stuck to the principle that it will maintain necessary humanitarian cooperation (with the DPRK) despite the graveness of circumstances following the sinking," Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung told reporters.

The rice aid will only be "in line with" the government principle, the spokesman added.