NORTH KOREA: North Korea could again face severe food shortages, analysts and aid agencies warned yesterday, after South Korea took the unusual step of threatening to cut off rice and fertiliser supplies if Pyongyang tested a long-range missile as feared.
The surprisingly harsh warning comes after Seoul's decision last year to supply aid directly to its northern neighbour - rather than through international agencies - contributed to Pyongyang's decision to expel aid workers involved in humanitarian rather than developmental projects.
It underlines the dilemma facing Roh Moo-hyun's government as it tries to balance its "sunshine" policy of engaging the North with being a respected player internationally.
Both Lee Jong-seok, the unification minister, and Ban Ki-moon, foreign minister, have warned that the North should not expect food or fertiliser aid from the South if goes ahead with such a test.
"The government has made it clear that a missile launch would have an impact on the South's assistance to the North," Mr Lee said.
According to US intelligence reports cited by officials, North Korea may be preparing a Taepodong-2 missile at a launch site on its northeastern coast.
The missile is believed to be capable of reaching Alaska, Hawaii and the west coast of the US, and any launch would be a highly provocative act by Pyongyang.
But linking humanitarian assistance with the political situation in North Korea is highly contentious, and the US State Department on Tuesday said that, as "a matter of general policy, we don't believe in using food as a weapon".
Seoul last year donated about 500,000 tonnes of rice and 350,000 tonnes of fertiliser through bilateral channels. In April the North asked for the same amount again.
Many aid agencies linked the South's bilateral move to Pyongyang's decision to order out the aid agencies that have been helping feed impoverished North Koreans since a famine in the mid-1990s killed an estimated two million to three million people.