NK invites officials of S. Korean private aid groups

North Korea has invited officials of a South Korean association of more than 50 private aid groups to discuss overall issues, an association official said Tuesday.

The invitation to the Korea NGO Council for Cooperation with North Korea suggests that the North wants to receive private aid from South Korea to help ease its chronic food shortages.

The offer comes as the United Nations' top humanitarian official said North Korea's food situation is worsening by the year regardless of its harvest.

Valerie Amos, the U.N. undersecretary-general for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, made the comment on Monday during her stop in Seoul after completing a fact-finding mission to the impoverished country.

The South Korean government halted unconditional aid in 2008 and slapped sanctions on the North last year in retaliation for the sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on the North.

The North has denied involvement in the sinking that killed 46 sailors and also shelled a Korean border island last November, killing four more South Koreans.

The North asked the association to send a dozen officials to Pyongyang from Wednesday through Saturday, said Park Hyun-seok, secretary general of the association.

Still, the aid officials are unlikely to visit Pyongyang because the South Korean government decided not to approve the travel request, citing the lack of monitoring, Park said.

The move appears to reflect widespread concerns that the North could divert outside food aid to its elite and military, the backbone of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's regime.

Separately, South Korea allowed a coalition of civic groups to send officials to Sariwon, a city south of the capital Pyongyang, from Wednesday through Saturday, according to the Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs.

The civic officials plan to visit a day care center and other child care facilities in Sariwon for their third monitoring of their flour aid to the North, said Lee Woon-sik of the Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation.

The North has relied on international handouts since the late 1990s when it suffered a massive famine that was estimated to have killed 2 million people. (Yonhap)