South Korea mulling restart of food aid to North

SEOUL, Nov 1 (Reuters) South Korea will consider resuming suspended food and fertiliser aid to North Korea due to Pyongyang's decision to return to talks on ending its nuclear weapons programme, a South Korean minister said today.

South Korea, which had been a key donor of food to the impoverished North, stopped its regular shipments after Pyongyang fired a barrage of missiles in July. Seoul said it could resume the aid if the North returned to the six-country nuclear talks.

''The rice and fertiliser aid to the North is a purely humanitarian issue, so frankly it had been difficult for us to have suspended it even in the face of a dire threat to peace,'' Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok said on KBS radio.

''I believe we need to consider whether to time it (resumption of aid) to the restart of the six-way talks or to substantive talks there or some other factor,'' he said, when asked whether North Korea's decision would now give rise to fresh food aid.

Even with a good harvest, North Korea falls about 1 million tonnes short of the food it needs to feed it people. South Korea has typically donated 500,000 tonnes of rice a year to the North and also shipped massive amounts of fertiliser.

North Korea also conducted a nuclear test on October 9, leading the U N Security Council to slap sanctions against it.

No date has been set for a resumption of the nuclear talks among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

North Korea said today it was returning to the talks, which have been on hold for about a year.

Reuters MS DB0902