By Kim Young-jin
Seoul is “positively considering” sending rice and other forms of requested aid to North Korea to help it cope with flood damage, government officials said Tuesday, a day marked by signs of the possible easing of tension on the Korean Peninsula.
“We are positively considering North Korea’s request,” a unification ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
The official said a decision would likely be reached in two to three days.
The development came as Pyongyang repatriated a South Korean vessel and its seven crewmembers, which it seized in the East Sea last month.
The limited exchange over the aid and release of the crewmen were considered a positive sign after months of icy relations.
Earlier in the day, the unification ministry announced the North’s request for aid, made three days earlier, which notably included rice, a touchy issue between the Koreas.
The request, made by the North Korean Red Cross, came in response to an aid offer last week from its southern counterpart. Seoul’s offer included water, instant noodles and daily necessities, but not rice.
“If the South sends aid, we would rather have cement and heavy equipment, along with rice, rather than emergency food, medicine and daily necessities,” ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung quoted the North’s Red Cross as saying.
President Lee Myung-bak halted rice aid upon taking office in 2008 as part of his tough line on the nuclear-armed North, cutting off years of such assistance.
There has also been skepticism that rice aid to the North may be diverted to its military.
The developments were the latest in a nascent series of conciliatory gestures after the sinking of a South Korean warship in March in waters off the west coast sent inter-Korean tensions soaring.
Nearly all exchanges between the two countries have been shelved since then. Seoul and its allies blame the incident on a North Korean torpedo attack while Pyongyang flatly denies its involvement.
The United States, after slapping additional sanctions on Pyongyang for the sinking, has offered it $750,000 worth of flood aid, Robert King, the U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights, told the Voice of America last week.
That followed the repatriation last month of Aijalon Gomes to the United States, who had been detained for months by the communist state for illegal entry.
The moves come against the backdrop of increased diplomacy over the stalled six-party talks on the North’s denuclearization that also include Japan, Russia and host China.
Beijing, the North’s main ally, has been pushing for a resumption of the talks in recent weeks, proposing a tiered plan under which Washington and Pyongyang sit down before a resumption of the full forum.
But prospects remain murky as Seoul and Washington maintain that the North should prove its genuine intent to denuclearize and take a “responsible attitude” over the sinking before the talks — stalled since 2008 — can resume.
Still, Dr. Park Young-ho, a senior fellow at the government-affiliated Korea Institute of National Unification (KNU), believes the gestures between the two countries bode well for the easing of tensions on the peninsula.
“Such interaction gives both the chance to thaw their relations by giving them the chance to hold some kind of dialogue,” he told The Korea Times. “There are still difficulties preventing full inter-Korean dialogue of course. Still, the current interaction is a good sign.”
Last month, the North’s state media reported that the northwestern town of Sinuiju and its vicinity had been “severely affected by floods.” Thousands of North Koreans were evacuated it said.