North Korea to accept South’s aid

North Korea has accepted an offer of aid from South Korea after devastating floods, the South said yesterday, the first time the new leadership in Pyongyang has accepted aid from Seoul.

In an unusually grim assessment of the North’s grain harvest this year, South Korea said last week that crop production for the year probably dropped by more than 10% due to flooding and a drought.

The South’s aid offer comes after the UN World Food Programme said last month it would send a first batch of emergency food aid to the isolated state.

North Korea’s state media has reported at least 200 people have been killed this summer due to flooding and a typhoon, and more than 200,000 left homeless. Tens of thousands of hectares of crops have been destroyed.

South Korea’s unification ministry said the North’s acceptance of its offer means talks will take place on how much and what kind of relief materials will be sent.

Past discussions have been fraught with complications, highlighting the politically sensitive nature of the rivals’ ties in recent years.

South Korea’s offer of help last year was pulled when the North asked for building material and equipment instead of food and medicine worth nearly $5m

Since the death of Kim Jong-il in December, the North's new leadership under his youngest son Kim Jong-un has increased verbal attacks against the South, and relations have gone back into a deep freeze.

South Korean president Lee Myung-bak ended a decade of large-scale aid to the North when he came to office in 2008, demanding Pyongyang stop its nuclear arms programme and initiate economic reforms first.