US may ban N.Korea aid

WASHINGTON: The House of Representatives has voted to bar US food aid to North Korea, with lawmakers charging that the assistance would prop up the communist regime instead of feeding the hungry.

The Republican-led House, hashing out appropriations for agriculture late Wednesday, approved by voice vote an amendment that would prohibit food assistance to North Korea through US government programs.

The measure needs approval by the Senate, where President Barack Obama's Democratic Party holds a majority. The Obama administration has voiced concerns about sending food to North Korea but has not made a decision, with some Democratic lawmakers supporting aid on humanitarian grounds.

Impoverished North Korea has requested overseas food and last month invited a US envoy to assess its needs. Relief groups have said that North Korea faces imminent shortages, although many US lawmakers have been skeptical.

Representative Ed Royce, a Republican from California who authored the amendment, said it would be wrong to send food to North Korea at a time that Kim Jong-Il's regime is pursuing nuclear weapons.

"Let's be clear, the aid we provide would prop up Kim Jong-Il's regime, a brutal and dangerous dictatorship," Royce said in a statement.

He quoted a North Korean defector, Kim Duk-Hong, as saying that food aid, "is the same as providing funding for North Korea's nuclear program because it allows Kim Jong-Il to divert resources."

US-based relief groups have proposed sending 160,000 to 175,000 tons of food to North Korea -- about half of what the regime requested.