South Korea Okays New Fertilizer Aid For North

South Korea decided Thursday to send North Korea more fertilizer, a gesture seen as an attempt to move inter-Korean talks forward.

"We hope that through the provision of fertilizer inter-Korean contacts can continue," Kim Hong-jae, a spokesman at the Unification Ministry, said.

Inter-Korean talks have stalled since the Bush administration said last month that Washington would review the U.S. position toward the North.

A government panel chaired by Unification Minister Lim Dong-won made the decision following a request from the North last week for 200,000 metric tons of fertilizer.

South Korea plans to make the first shipment of 12,000 tons next week, just in time for spring planting, and complete the shipment by early June. Total value of the planned fertilizer shipments was put at 68 billion won ($51 million).

Representatives from the World Food Program warned this month that North Korea's most recent harvest left the country with only two-thirds of its food needs.

Successive years of bad weather have devastated North Korea's collective farm system. Since 1995 the country has depended on outside aid to avert famine, but hundreds of thousands of people have starved to death, according to analysts.

by Lee Young-jong