- (AFP) -- The United States has said it will donate 60,000
tonnes of food to North Korea, freeing up a donation it had withheld amid
concerns that Pyongyang may prevent the aid reach undernourished people.
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- The Christmas Eve donation was announced by the State
Department, which said US concerns over the Stalinist state's nuclear crusade
would not stop it helping North Korea's people.
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- The move followed an appeal by the United Nations World
Food Program (WFP) this month for the international community to commit
itself to a new 171 million dollar emergency operation to feed 6.5 million
starving people in North Korea.
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- "The United States will donate an additional 60,000
metric tons of agricultural commodities to North Korea's people through
the World Food Program's 2003 emergency feeding operation," said State
Department spokesman Richard Boucher.
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- The donation will bring US food aid donations to Pyongyang
to 100,000 tonnes this year.
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- "President Bush has repeatedly emphasized his concern
for the plight of the North Korean people, who rely on the generosity of
the international community's food aid programs to avoid hunger and starvation,"
Boucher said in a statement.
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- "We are committed to providing our fair share in
response to the World Food Program's appeals on purely humanitarian grounds
and without linkage to our concerns regarding North Korea's policies."
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- The United States has been locked in a crisis over Pyongyang's
nuclear weapons programs for more than a year, and planned six-way talks
in Beijing this month aimed at easing the crisis failed to get off the
ground.
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- Boucher said Washington had felt compelled to act after
WFP Executive Director James Morris, sent two letters to the adminstration
warning that four million of North Korean's most vulnerable citizens were
under threat without new contributions.
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- Morris noted some progress this year in operating conditions
in North Korea, including an improvement in monitoring of supplies allowed
by the government, Boucher said.
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- The State Department warned earlier this month that it
had not decided how to respond to the WFP's call, concerned at past efforts
by Pyongyang to restrict how food shipments were monitored.
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- Washington has in the past accused Pyongyang of diverting
food intended for famine-hit populations to its one million strong military.
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- But it has also said it will not use food aid as political
leverage.
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- "Mr Morris stressed that the concerns of the U.S.
on monitoring and access are exactly the same as the World Food Program's,"
Boucher said Wednesday.
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- "We again call on North Korea to adhere to the same
standards of humanitarian access that apply to other recipients of international
food assistance."
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- Most of the poor North Koreans WFP is targeting live
in urban areas outside the Pyongyang and are heavily dependent on a government-run
Public Distribution System that in 2004 plans to provide just 300 grams
per person per day -- less than half a survival ration.
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- The UN agency said steep increases in the prices of staple
foods supplied through the PDS and in private markets, combined with the
inability of many factories to pay full wages, have made it even more difficult
for large segments of the population to cope.
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