- SEOUL (AFP) - North Korea
stunned South Korea by blocking an offer from Seoul for swift aid to train
blast victims in a signal that barriers remained to its embrace of international
relief efforts.
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- The communist state turned down Seoul's offer to transport
emergency aid directly through the tense inter-Korean border that would
have brought early relief to victims of last week's explosion in which
at least 161 people died and 1,300 were injured.
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- "North Korea rejected our proposed overland transportation
of emergency relief goods," said Moon Won-Il, spokesman for South
Korea's National Red Cross. "North Korea did not elaborate on the
reason."
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- The border between the two Koreas is the world's most
heavily fortified frontier, dividing some 600,000 South Korean troops from
North Korea's 1.1 million-strong army.
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- North Korea's decision surprised South Koreans who have
been mobilized by feelings of brotherly compassion to stage a major relief
effort for disaster victims in the Stalinist state.
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- "The North called for shipping emergency relief
goods to its (southwestern) port of Nampo by sea, rather than overland,"
said Hong Jae-Hyun, director general for social and cultural exchanges
with North Korea at the South Korean Unification Ministry.
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- He said both sides would discuss "technical details"
of the proposed transportation at the town of Kaesong, just over the border
inside North Korea, on Tuesday.
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- "We do not know the exact reason, but we just presume
that North Korea might be concerned about security issues involved in allowing
cross-border transportation," said a ministry official who declined
to be named.
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- Red Cross officials said delivering aid by road to the
blast site at Ryongchon would take about four hours. The alternative, sea
transportation, would take two days.
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- The decision came as a blow to many in the South who
felt that North Korea had taken a decision to be more open and transparent
in its dealings with the outside world as a result of the blast.
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- Pyongyang responded with unusual speed to the disaster,
accepting aid from the international community and taking foreign diplomats
and aid workers on a tour of the site while making a rare public announcement
about the explosion through its official media.
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- South Korea has pledged one million dollars worth of
disaster aid for Ryongchon and acting president Goh Kun earlier Monday
called for swift deployment of the aid.
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- Trucks carrying relief goods were arriving back-to-back
at transport stops northwest of Seoul, ready to head into North Korean
territory, a spokesman for Goh said.
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- Goh, the prime minister who is standing in for Roh Moo-Hyun,
suspended from office as president following his impeachment last month,
said speed was of the essence in delivering relief.
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- "Making aid materials arrive at the scene as quickly
as possible is most important of all," Goh was quoted as saying.
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- Private South Korean citizens have come together in an
outpouring of generosity for North Koreans once considered arch-enemies.
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- Civic groups are collecting money on street corners while
others are tapping contributions from business groups.
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- North Korea has allowed few South Koreans to cross over
the tense border at Panmunjom, the border village at the center of the
Demilitarized Zone.
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- The buffer zone symbolizes tension that still remains
between two sides who technically remain at war, having never signed a
peace treaty following the Korean War.
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- However, relations have improved steadily in recent years
following a summit between the leaders of North and South in 2000 that
laid the foundations for reconciliation.
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- But North Koreans may not yet be ready for the sight
of a convoy of South Korean trucks winding the entire length of the country
from the inter-Korean border to Ryongchon on the northern border with China,
said officials in the South.
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