WFP officials to visit Seoul next week

By Kim Young-jin

Officials from the U.N. food agency will visit Seoul next week, officials said Friday, as the international community grapples with how to help the impoverished North Korean population.

The delegation of World Food Program (WFP) officials in charge of the agency’s donor relations will arrive Monday on a four day visit, the source said on condition of anonymity. They are expected to meet with officials from Seoul’s foreign and unification ministries.

The visit comes after a U.N. report Thursday called for 470,000 tons of international aid for North Koreans, a quarter of whom it says is in urgent need of food. The WFP recently wrapped up a visit to North Korea to assess the situation.

Unification ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung confirmed the visit but officials were mum on whether it would include any officials that travelled to the North for the assessment.

Food aid to the North has significantly dropped over Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear tests, which brought about international sanctions.

The U.N. report is considered to play a key role in whether Washington resumes aid to the North. Officials here have downplayed speculation that if the U.S. resumes food aid, Seoul would consider doing the same.

But the unification ministry has said the government is mulling lifting its moratorium on private-sector humanitarian aid, imposed after two deadly attacks by the North last year after appeals from non-governmental organizations.

Calls have grown in Washington for the resumption of food aid, with some saying it could pave the way for renewed diplomacy on Pyongyang's nuclear programs and decrease chances of further provocative behavior.