Global Policy Forum

By Steven R. Weisman

For months, President Bush has pledged not to use food as a weapon against North Korea. But as the confrontation deepens over the North's nuclear weapons program, the United States has continued to withhold the approval of grain shipments sought by relief groups to avert starvation in North Korea.

The World Food Program, an arm of the United Nations, says the suspension of food aid by the United States and Japan, and severe cutbacks by South Korea, have meant that, for the first time in years, it will miss its food distribution goals in North Korea this winter "by a wide margin."

"We're very concerned about it," said a World Food Program official. "We understand that there are political considerations. But this is a population that is suffering, with women and children the most vulnerable."

The Bush administration says it has been withholding food, not to pressure North Korea, but because of lapses in the system for monitoring where the food is distributed.

"Our intention is to go forward, but we do need to solve these monitoring problems first," said an administration official. He added that food could not be distributed until Congress approved the State Department budget for the program, in the next month or two.

But World Food Program officials say they have "no hard evidence" that food intended for starving Korean civilians has been diverted to the military. "We have relatively good confidence that the food is reaching the people who need it," one program official said.

Whatever the reasons, the food crisis has thrust itself into the middle of urgent meetings by the United States and North Korea's neighbors — Russia, China, South Korea and Japan — on how to handle North Korea's recent decision to reactivate its nuclear weapons program.

American, Japanese and South Korean officials are to meet in Washington on Monday to determine the next steps, including whether to reach out to North Korea to head off its nuclear weapons buildup, and if so, by what means, and whether to tighten or ease economic pressure on North Korea.

Today, Russian officials offered to serve as mediators in the standoff with North Korea. "The Russians said they would try their best to use their channel to North Korea," said South Korea's deputy foreign minister, Kim Hang Kyung, who met with the Russian Foreign Ministry's top Asia expert, Aleksandr Losyukov, and other senior Russian officials in Moscow. "They will talk to North Korea and discuss" a peaceful end to the crisis, he said.

On Monday, the International Atomic Energy Agency is to meet to discuss what to do about North Korea's move last month to dismantle the inspections equipment at its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, where weapons-grade plutonium has been manufactured and possibly used to make two nuclear weapons.

Agency inspectors were ejected from North Korea last week, increasing anxiety throughout the West and complicating the Bush administration's efforts to mobilize a worldwide coalition against Iraq, whose nuclear weapons program is considered far less advanced than North Korea's.

The three-way talks in Washington have been roiled, in part, by the political transition in South Korea, with President Kim Dae Jung preparing to yield power next month to Roh Moo Hyun.

Both men are strong advocates of engagement with North Korea. Indeed, in the last few days, Mr. Roh's advisers have begun floating ideas about how to break the impasse that has arisen over the American policy of not negotiating with North Korea until it disavows its nuclear program. Mr. Roh has called for just such negotiations.

One of Mr. Roh's transition advisers said last week that the president-elect wanted the United States to go along with a proposal by North Korea that the United States commit itself to a nonaggression pact with the North, as part of a deal in which North Korea would back away from its nuclear program.

In Washington, Bush administration officials say they have not rejected this idea out of hand. Mr. Bush, they noted, has repeatedly declared that the United States has no intention of attacking North Korea. Therefore, they said, some sort of an agreement of nonaggression might well be part of an eventual deal on weapons.

"The new guys in South Korea want to introduce some new ideas, and that's not unhealthy," said an administration official.

"But we can't get caught making concessions to get them to meet the commitments they've already made," he added, referring to North Korea.

The official pointed to the 1994 agreement by North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program, which the United States discovered last summer had been violated by North Korea for several years.

As for the food aid, diplomats say the United States will be urged to avoid a new round of pressure on the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, who has not emphasized that issue.

Although South Korea has reduced its own food aid to the North, officials in Seoul criticized the Bush administration for forcing other nations to go along with its demand for a cutoff of fuel shipments to North Korea last year, even though the shipments had been arranged as part of the 1994 agreement, now broken.

Until this winter, the United States has supplied 20 to 30 percent of the food provided by the World Food Program to North Korea. Since the mid-1990's, this has amounted to 1.7 million tons, or $600 million worth, a program official said.

But this year the total appeal for North Korea is 512,000 tons. The United States has withheld its support for this appeal, as has Japan, which cut off food aid last year because of anger over North Korea's acknowledgment that it had abducted several Japanese citizens during the cold war.

South Korea has also cut back its supplies because of rising tensions with the North, the World Food Program official said. About 80,000 tons is needed immediately to avert starvation, the official said.

The official said the program itself had long been concerned about monitoring supplies, which was why it has increased its international staff to 39 from just one in 1995.

The program's policy, officials say, is to distribute food only in those parts of North Korea where monitors are allowed to ensure that the right people receive it. Food is not distributed in the roughly 20 percent of the country where monitors are barred, apparently because of North Korea's security concerns. "We have always had a policy of `no access, no food' even though there are hungry people in areas we cannot enter," the program official said.

Many other decisions must be faced by Washington and its allies. For example, although the United States has persuaded other countries to stop oil shipments, the Korean Energy Development Organization, or KEDO, which was set up to send the fuel, remains intact.

The organization, made up of the United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union, must also decide early this year whether to proceed with plans to help North Korea generate energy by building two light-water nuclear reactors whose spent fuel cannot easily be converted into bombs.

"We've got to decide what KEDO does about further deliveries of equipment and construction materials," said an administration official. Once again, there is disagreement among the partners, with South Korea fearing that the American desire for a cutoff will only provoke North Korea further.

Another issue that may be confronted this week in Washington is how to approach North Korea — whether one of the nations in the region should make contact in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital, or whether this should be done through North Korea's mission at the United Nations, or whether a different country or person should serve as an intermediary.

"We know that plenty of people have contacts with North Korea," said an administration official. "The first thing that has to be conveyed is a consistent message."

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