N. Korea Wants Aid in Return for Peace Talks

On the brink of starvation, North Korea is demanding food as a precondition to peace talks, and civilian officials in Pyongyang say they worry about what the military will do if food aid does not arrive, according to a delegation of U.S. senators who returned here from the North Korean capital Saturday.

“We were led to believe that there was a rift and that the military was disturbed that the civilian authorities had not been able to obtain the food and obtain the fuel they’d been told they’d get,” said Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), the delegation’s leader.

The United States has already provided $18 million in food aid to North Korea and has said it will consider more humanitarian aid to stave off famine. But officials insist that the U.S. will not use food as bait to lure the Stalinist regime to the negotiating table.

The senators made clear to their North Korean hosts that “we are going to have a difficult time in our Congress obtaining support for money for the food if it’s looked at as a precondition to carrying out what they’ve already agreed to,” Stevens said.

The United States wants four-way talks with North and South Korea and China to hammer out a permanent peace treaty to replace the truce that ended the Korean War in 1953. North Korea has fitfully participated in informal talks about the possibility of such a summit, but as of the most recent meeting, in New York on Thursday, Pyongyang had not yet given a definitive answer on formal negotiations.

International aid agencies say the North Koreans are weeks away from starvation. After two years of disastrous floods and economic calamity, the already-meager food stockpiles are running out. Although the senators said they did not see any signs of malnutrition in Pyongyang, the tightly controlled capital, food and fuel shortages were “very apparent” even during a 24-hour visit.

None of the buildings the senators visited was heated, and a collective farm on the outskirts of the city was producing rice and vegetables but no livestock.

“There was not a chicken, there was not a pig, there was not a duck, there was not a goose,” said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.).

The U.N. World Food Program reports that North Koreans are subsisting on a government ration of 3 1/2 ounces of rice a day--about one-fifth the adult calorie requirement. The agency is trying to raise about $41.6 million to deliver emergency food supplies by May.

The senators said they were cordially received by the North Koreans and treated to a good dinner. But “it’s a little hard to eat a dinner like that after listening to the tales about the amount of food they need,” Stevens said.

North Korean officials said the nation has a food shortfall of at least 1.5 million tons a year, Stevens said. The North Koreans did not specify how much food they were demanding, and they called it “a gesture of goodwill,” not a precondition.

Both North Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Kang Sok Ju and Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan were “quite open in saying that, if they were unable to get the food and supplies, they were not sure how the military would respond to their going to the four-party talks and trying to negotiate,” said Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.).

North Korea watchers have scant insight into the world’s most secretive regime, and the situation has recently become more uncertain with the defection of a senior North Korean official and turnover in other top posts.

There have been persistent but unverifiable reports of a rift between isolationist military hard-liners and Foreign Ministry officials, who support engagement and trade with the West as the only way to prevent economic collapse. But Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) said he regarded “the constant references to disenchantment on the part of the army as part of their negotiating posture.”

North Korean People’s Army officials did not respond to a request for a meeting with the senators.

The Foreign Ministry officials insisted that their system is not collapsing, but they had a long list of demands, including agricultural and fuel assistance; help in building a light-water nuclear reactor; and the lifting of trade sanctions. The senators told them that the U.S. would discuss any issues, without preconditions, at the four-way peace talks.