Seoul Sees Its Rice for North as a Step to Reconciliation

South Korean President Kim Young Sam said Friday that a historic deal for South Korea to provide emergency shipments of rice to the impoverished North could bring about a “turning point” in reconciling the estranged Koreas.

As the first of 150,000 tons of South Korean rice was loaded aboard ship, Kim predicted that the pact would lead to a historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il once the Communist leader officially assumes the presidency as expected later this year.

The ship was to have sailed today, but government officials said the departure would be delayed two or three days at the request of the North, which said its ports and transportation equipment were not ready to handle the rice.

Kim also said North Korea would soon release the crew of a southern fishing vessel being detained in the North.

The South Korean leader’s statements were the rosiest in months on North-South relations, which have been virtually frozen over nuclear controversies and other problems.

Details of the pact--forged this week after five days of secretive talks in Beijing--remained closely guarded.

Kim termed it an unconditional humanitarian gesture made “out of sheer brotherly compassion.”

Pyongyang has not yet publicly acknowledged the deal and, in fact, has stepped up propaganda attacks against the South.

As Kim brushed off the attacks and confidently predicted new momentum in stalled talks over national reunification, analysts here said it appeared that far more than rice was discussed in Beijing.

The deal may also lead to a resumption of family visits between relatives separated by war, a new round of talks over economic cooperation and revived ties with Japan, which announced that it will also send rice.

Under the agreement, a South Korean vessel flying the national flag will sail into northern waters for the first time since the Korean War in the early 1950s.

Pyongyang’s philosophy of juche , or self-reliance, proudly promulgated by the late North Korean leader Kim Il Sung, has caused it to spurn past offers of aid from its southern rival. Although the North has quietly purchased rice from capitalist nations in the past--including the United States--the agreement this week with South Korea marks the first time it has openly asked for help.

“This marks a real revisionism in North Korea,” said Lee Ki Tak, a Yonsei University professor of international relations. “It is a wonderful phenomenon. The North Korean decision-making body is changing.”

Although outsiders are never sure what transpires inside the secretive Communist nation, analysts speculate that chronic food shortages have deepened to the point of threatening the political stability of Kim’s regime.

North Korea’s economic troubles have steadily worsened since the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union and China began demanding hard currency for goods instead of barter trade.

Since then, Pyongyang has suffered from endemic energy shortages that have reportedly idled the majority of factories and from poor harvests that fill only 60% of the nation’s needs. North Korea was able to meet nearly half its 2.5-million-ton shortfall with imports in 1993, but that fell to just 300,000 tons last year, the South Korean press has reported.

Defectors to South Korea have painted grim pictures of widespread starvation, with some saying they were reduced to eating tree bark to survive.

Kang Myung Do, a defector who claims to be the son-in-law of North Korean Prime Minister Kang Song San, told the Associated Press this week that Pyongyang is so desperate that it is printing counterfeit money and has entered the heroin trade. Kang also said Kim chose to accept the rice to solve the power struggle between conservative isolationists and liberals who favor economic development through growing ties with the world.

Some here say that Pyongyang’s desire for economic aid, investment and technology was the real reason it first approached Japan for rice last month--a move that prompted Seoul to make its own offer. Shortly after South Korean negotiators announced their rice deal, Japan’s Food Agency confirmed that it would also send between 300,000 and 500,000 tons.

“This is not a question of rice, but a question of diplomacy--improving relations between North Korea and Japan,” Lee said.

Economic officials in Seoul said they hope the deal will restart talks for the two Koreas to open representative offices in each other’s capitals and establish communication, transportation and trade links.