South Korea started sending fertiliser to North Korea on Saturday as part an agreement reached after rare bilateral talks that failed to persuade the North to resume negotiations on its nuclear programmes. Ending four days of talks on Thursday, South Korea agreed to ship 200,000 tonnes of fertiliser to the North after requests from its impoverished neighbour to ease food shortages that an aid official said could worsen. "We sent 50 trucks carrying fertiliser this morning and they will cross the Demilitarised Zone and arrive in Kaesong. This is the first time South Korea has provided fertiliser to the North by land," said an official at the Unification Ministry.
The heavily fortified Demilitarised Zone bisects the Korean peninsula and has divided the two Koreas for more than half a century.
South Korea had hoped to use the bilateral talks, the first formal high-level meeting in 10 months, to put pressure on the North to return to stalled nuclear talks that bring together the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.
The official said a total of 10,000 tonnes of fertiliser would be sent to the North by land until May 28, while the remaining 190,000 tonnes would sent by sea.
Arms experts say the impoverished North's nuclear programme has diverted funds from the rest of the economy for decades. A lack of fertiliser and farm machinery, for example, has contributed to the North's long-running food shortages.
Tensions have mounted in recent weeks after US officials said North Korea might be preparing for a nuclear test. Regional powers have been stepping up diplomatic efforts to restart the six-party talks, stalled for nearly a year.
Comments
Comments are closed.