SEOUL, Aug 21 (Reuters) - South Korea could provide food aid to impoverished North Korea through a U.N. agency after Seoul halted direct shipments of rice due to political tensions with its neighbour, a government official said on Thursday. A Unification Ministry spokesman said the U.N. World Food Programme has asked South Korea to provide $60 million as part of the WFP's plan to feed more than 6 million of the neediest people in North Korea, which has a population of 23 million. "Our stance has always been (that if there is a dire need), humanitarian assistances can be given unconditionally, regardless of political issues," said spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon. Kim added the government is discussing the request but has yet to make a final decision. The $60 million could buy roughly about 150,000 tonnes of corn or 75,000 tonnes of rice. South Korea has typically given about 400,000 tonnes of rice a year to North Korea, which battles chronic shortages, but ties chilled between the states after a new president took office in February with pledges to get tough on Pyongyang. President Lee Myung-bak has tried to end what had largely been the unconditional flow of aid North Korea had seen for years under his predecessors. Lee said handouts would be tied to progress North Korea makes in nuclear disarmament. The North, used to receiving aid with few questions asked, has lashed out at Lee, calling him a "traitor to the nation". Ties frayed further after a North Korean soldier last month shot dead a South Korean tourist at a mountain resort in the North. The WFP last month said parts of North Korea were experiencing their worst food shortages in nearly a decade. Flooding last year, higher commodity prices and wrangling with South Korea have pushed North Korea to a food shortfall similar to ones it faced about a decade ago when famine killed an estimated 1 million people, experts have said. While South Korea has stepped back in providing food aid, the United States has stepped up and started in June to send 500,000 tonnes of pledged food aid, most of which will be distributed by the WFP. The WFP has an extensive monitoring programme in secretive North Korea to try and make sure the food makes its way to the needy and not into the hand of the North's powerful military. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation said in late March it expects North Korea to have a shortfall of about 1.66 million tonnes in cereals for the year ending in October 2008, the largest deficit in about seven years. (Reporting by Jon Herskovitz and Kim Junghyun; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
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Food and hunger
