Pyongyang turns to New Delhi for rice

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Pyongyang turns to New Delhi for rice

In this photo from the Indian Chamber of International Business (ICIB) website, two North Korean diplomats from the country's embassy in New Delhi visit the ICIB office. [INDIAN CHAMBER OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS]

In this photo from the Indian Chamber of International Business (ICIB) website, two North Korean diplomats from the country's embassy in New Delhi visit the ICIB office. [INDIAN CHAMBER OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS]

 
North Korea is requesting food aid from India, citing shortages due to floods after it dismissed the South's offer of economic assistance in return for denuclearization.
 
The North Korean embassy in New Delhi approached the Indian Chamber of International Business (ICIB), an organization that supports small and medium-sized companies, for assistance, according to a Korean-language Voice of America (VOA) report.
 
“We have been approached by the Embassy to look at possibilities for donation of rice for the people of DPRK as the situation due to floods destroyed most of the crop,” said Manpreet Singh, president of the ICIB, in response to a written request for comment by VOA.
 
A photograph on a section of ICIB’s website listing the organization’s events this year show North Korean diplomats at the ICIB’s office. The caption reads, “The commercial attache and other officers of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea visited the office of ICIB in New Delhi for discussions of humanitarian aid of food grains to the people of DPRK.”
 
Earlier, the VOA reported that an Indian company posted a notice that it is looking to hire a ship to transport 10,000 tons of rice from Visakhapatnam, an eastern port on the Bay of Bengal also known as Vizag, to Nampo, a major North Korean port on the Yellow Sea.
 
According to the shipping notice, the rice is to be transported in 50-kilogram (110-pound) sacks in late September, around the time the local monsoon season ends.
 
An Indian ship industry official with knowledge of the shipment told the VOA on Aug. 28 that North Korea appears to be trying to import long grain rice produced in India, Pakistan, Egypt, Vietnam, and Thailand instead of the short grain its people are used to consuming.
 
The North’s request for aid from countries other than China, its usual donor country, and its willingness to accept long grain rice suggest a dire situation after torrential rains that hit the Korean Peninsula over the past two months.
 
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) re-designated North Korea as a country in need of external food aid in a “Crop Prospects and Food Situations Quarterly Global Report” released last month.
 
In an Aug. 19 speech, Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, dismissed South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s offer of food, health care, agriculture and infrastructure aid.
 
“No one barters its destiny for corn cake,” Kim said.
 
While North Koreans partially rely on the state distribution program to obtain their staple food, rice, and other essential foodstuffs, defectors and others who have lived in the country in recent decades report that the regime regularly offsets shortfalls in rice rations with corn, considered to be an inferior nutritional substitute.
 

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]
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