WASHINGTON -- Rejecting the use of food as a weapon against an adversary regime, the Clinton administration is prepared to donate 200,000 additional tons of food to North Korea.
On Monday, the administration promised the famine-plagued country food assistance despite concerns about North Korea's growing militarization, including development of missiles potentially capable of reaching U.S. cities.The strides taken by North Korea and other countries in the missile area have prompted strong congressional interest in developing a national defense against a potential missile attack.
On the positive side, North Korea bowed last week to administration demands that U.S. officials be allowed to inspect an underground site suspected of being used to develop nuclear weapons.
According to officials, North Korea renounced such weaponry under a 1994 U.S.-North Korean agreement.
Last week's agreement does not affect North Korea's missile testing program.
Administration officials insisted there was no link between that agreement and the pledge of additional food aid, valued at more than $60 million. They justified the assistance on humanitarian grounds.
North Korea has been ravaged by food shortages for years. "The food situation this year still remains very difficult," the official Korean Central News Agency reported Monday.
In December, the U.N. World Food Program appealed for outside donations for North Korea. Hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions, of North Koreans are believed to have died from starvation in recent years. The United States has been the major outside donor of food aid to North Korea.
Half of the 200,000-ton aid package will be administered by the WFP. The other half will be provided to North Korea in support of a new bilateral potato project that was announced last week, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development. It is the first bilateral U.S. food aid program; all previous donations have been under WFP auspices.