The United States would consider any new request from North Korea to

The United States would consider any new request from North Korea to resume food aid stalled since 2009, provided Pyongyang allowed US staff inside the isolated country to monitor distribution.

But any such requests would have to be balanced against demands from other countries as well as US “ability to be monitor the delivery of that assistance.”

US officials would also need to be allowed into the country to make their own assessment, as well as to monitor distribution, he added, speaking amid heightened tensions with the North which has unleashed a series of bellicose threats in recent weeks.

The United States last provided food aid to North Korea from late 2008 to March 2009. Some 170,000 tonnes out of an expected 500,000 tonnes of food aid was delivered, until Pyongyang expelled US workers monitoring the distribution.

Washington had not been able to monitor where some 22,000 tonnes of food had gone, King said. “They ended it. They said we’re through.”

The US had been planning to resume the aid in April 2012, when Washington agreed to provide 240,000 metric tons of nutritional assistance to the communist state, in return for a promise to halt its nuclear activities including uranium enrichment and to allow in UN inspectors.

But those plans fell apart, amid broken promises from North Korea to halt its missile launches. King insisted however the suspension of food aid was not related to a collapsed deal on reining in the North’s nuclear program.

Source AP