By Kim Hyo-jin
The United States will maintain its policy of not providing humanitarian aid to North Korea in 2015, for the fourth consecutive year.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced that it has no plans to provide assistance to the North, Radio Free America (RFA) reported Friday.
USAID is a public agency that orchestrated government aid to the reclusive nation in cooperation with the World Food Program (WFP) and civic groups.
USAID provided $1.5 million to Pyongyang in 2010 and 2011 to assist its recovery from floods.
But it stopped giving funds to the isolated nation in 2011.
“This is because there has been no large-scale natural disaster there that has needed external help since then,” the RFA quoted USAID spokesperson Raphael Cook as saying.
The U.S., the largest donor to the WFP’s North Korea aid program, has not contributed to it since 2009. Also, the WFP’s fundraising efforts have been hampered since the United Nations raised awareness of the North’s human rights violations last year.
A North Korea expert said the halting of aid may be a result of negative views of the North Korean leader’s spending on luxury goods each year instead of importing food for people there.
“Many members of U.S. Congress sympathize with the people of North Korea, but they can’t help as long as Kim Jong-un wastes North Korea’s wealth while frustrating the free and fair delivery of aid,” said North Korea expert Joshua Stanton of One Free Korea.
U.S. donations to the WFP stopped when Pyongyang tightened its rules on monitoring food aid by restricting the number of Korean-speaking monitors allowed into the country, according to a U.S. Congressional Research Service report released early last year.