WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States said Tuesday it was working on a new proposal to send emergency food aid to Stalinist North Korea that includes a better way to monitor how it is distributed.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters an agreement had not yet been reached when asked to comment on a report that the United States has agreed to the delivery of 500,000 tons of food aid to North Korea.
The report in the London-based Financial Times said the deal called for North Korea granting unprecedented access for monitors to oversee its distribution.
McCormack said the US government was studying a report from a team of experts who held talks on food aid last week in Pyongyang, talks which he had described as "inconclusive" at the time.
The US government is "working on now a proposal for food aid to address the humanitarian need in North Korea," now that the team has reported back to officials here.
McCormack said the US team had "come up with what we believe could be a better monitoring mechanism for the food" as a result of "good conversations" with North Korean officials.
Washington is studying the North Korean needs, how it can meet the needs "as well as seeing if everybody is comfortable throughout the US government with the kinds of monitoring mechanisms that would be put in place," he said.
"I don't have an announcement today," he added.
The State Department has said the provision of food aid depends on the level of need, supply "and our view of other needs that might exist, and our ability to ensure aid is reliably reaching the people in need."
North Korea said last week that the talks with the team had gone well "in a sincere atmosphere."
A US think tank, the Peterson Institute for International Economics, warned this month that the North runs the risk of outright famine -- ten years after up to one million of its people died of starvation.
The institute also said food prices have almost tripled in the last year.
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