South Korea's government and ruling party have been in talks to consider resuming food aid to North Korea that has been halted due to deteriorating inter-Korean relations, as part of efforts to improve its relations with Pyongyang and to control its rising rice stockpiles, officials said Monday.
In a meeting with senior government officials on Sunday, Ahn Sang-soo, chairman of the ruling Grand National Party (GNP), raised the necessity of considering resumption of rice shipments to Pyongyang, citing the North's worsening food crisis in the wake of recent severe floods, according to GNP spokesman Ahn Hyoung-hwan.
The GNP chairman also said that a North Korea-bound rice shipment would help Seoul promote rice consumption and cut costs for the state's stockpile of rice, particularly ahead of the government's upcoming annual rice purchase.
South Korea had previously sent 300,000-400,000 tons of rice to its hunger-stricken neighbor annually, but has not made a delivery since President Lee Myung-bak took office in early 2008.
"But the aid to North Korea should be reviewed multilaterally in terms of humanitarian perspectives as well as international relations," the spokesman said.
Inter-Korean relations worsened last year when the North conducted long-range missile and nuclear tests. Tensions have risen since the South
Korean patrol ship Cheonan sank in March from what investigators said was a North Korean torpedo attack, which killed 46 sailors.
Earlier this month, a group of five South Koreans crossed the heavily armed border into North Korea to deliver 400 million won (US$340,000) worth of anti-malaria aid despite hostility between the divided states.
The crossing marked the first South Korean civilian visit to the communist state since Seoul banned trips to North Korea three months ago in
protest over the sinking of the South Korean warship near their Yellow Sea border.