S Korea provides humanitarian aid to DPRK

South Korea on Monday notified the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) that Seoul would provide small-scale humanitarian aid to Pyongyang.

According to a press release issued by South Korea's Red Cross, it informed its DPRK's counterpart by sending a fax that the South Korean side will offer 10,000 tons of corn, 20 tons of milk powder and medicine to the DPRK.

It added that the aid, which came as a respond to DPRK's demand for assistance and based on humanitarian and compatriotic grounds, will be mainly targeted at "infants and children and pregnant women and other vulnerable people."

The aid will be the first direct humanitarian food aid from Seoul to Pyongyang since South Korea's conservative government led by Lee Myung-bak took office in February, 2008.

The DPRK requested further humanitarian aid from South Korea during inter-Korean Red Cross talks on family reunions on Oct. 16.

South Korea has provided rice and fertilizers to the DPRK under a "Sunshine Policy" adopted during terms of former Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun. But the current government halted the aid as it came to power last year, taking a tougher approach on the DPRK's nuclear issue.

Source: Xinhua