Press Statement
Richard Boucher, Spokesman
Seoul, South Korea
February 25, 2003

U.S. Food Donation For North Korea

The Secretary of State announced today that the United States government will
provide an initial donation of 40,000 metric tons of agricultural commodities
and is prepared to contribute as much as 60,000 metric tons more of such aid to
North Korea in response to the World Food Program s appeal for its 2003
emergency feeding operation. Our decision to provide 40,000 metric tons of food
at this time is based on demonstrated need in North Korea, competing needs
elsewhere, and donors ability to access all vulnerable groups and monitor
distribution. Additional U.S. food aid contributions for North Korea in 2003
will be based on these same factors.

Funding for the initial donation will come from the U.S. Agency for
International Development s PL-480 program and the U.S. Department of
Agriculture s Section 416(b) program. This donation will bring total U.S. food
aid to North Korea since 1995 to nearly 2.0 million metric tons, valued at
approximately $650 million. The mix of commodities for this donation will be
determined soon in consultation with the World Food Program.

As President Bush has said, we are prepared to help feed people in North Korea
without regard to our concerns about North Korea s policies. With this
contribution, the United States continues to be a significant donor of food
assistance to North Korea. In 2002, our total contribution of 157,000 metric
tons made us the World Food Program s largest donor to North Korea. That
contribution comprised 26 percent of the 611,000 metric tons the World Food
Program requested and more than half of the 303,000 metric tons it received.

This year, the United States will again contribute a generous share. At the
same time, we have serious concerns about North Korea s restrictions on
monitoring and on access to its people that impair the World Food Program s
ability to ensure that our food assistance gets to those who need it. The
United States calls on North Korea to adhere to the same standards of
humanitarian access that apply to all recipients of international food
assistance. We expressed our concerns about monitoring and access restrictions
when we announced our donations in December 2001 and June 2002 and called upon
that government to remove restrictions then, as we call upon North Korea once
again to do now. We officially shared our concerns directly with the North
Korean Mission to the United Nations in New York in August 2002. We regret that
they have not responded.

We intend to work with the World Food Program to resolve our common concerns
regarding monitoring and access in North Korea. We encourage other donor
governments and non-governmental donors of humanitarian food assistance to
support this effort.
[End]