U.S. To Send Famine Team To N. Korea

For the first time, the United States is planning to send a team of experts to North Korea to assess the country’s increasingly grave food situation, the State Department said Wednesday.

U.S. officials made the offer Tuesday during a meeting in New York and North Korean officials welcomed it, spokesman James P. Rubin said.

“This would be the first team of this nature sent by the United States government,” Rubin said. North Korea has traditionally sought to be completely self-sufficient but with the onset of the food crisis, it has been increasingly open to assistance by outsiders.

Rubin said the United States proposed that the experts go to North Korea at the end of the current harvest.

The United States has sent several shipments of food to North Korea this year, but Rubin did not promise any additional deliveries. The U.S. experts will assess procedures for ensuring that outside food donations reach the intended recipients.

Andrew Natsios, vice president of World Vision, a Christian relief group, said Monday the North Korean famine may have killed a million or more people.

North Koreans are reporting bodies lying in village streets and coffins being reused to keep up with demand, he said.

The U.S.-North Korean talks were held in advance of the second round of preliminary discussions on a possible peace treaty for the Korean peninsula. Those discussions, involving the two Koreas, the United States and China, will begin today at Columbia University in New York.