RED CROSS negotiators from the two Koreas have signed a deal to ship 50,000 tonnes of food aid to the starving North, a South Korean official said yesterday.
The emergency aid, raised through private donations in the South, would be shipped "between now and the end of July," the official said.
Agreement was reached in talks on Sunday, the third day of negotiations, and a document was signed yesterday morning.
Mr Johan Schaar, head of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRCRCS) regional delegation, said that under the agreement representatives of the South Korean Red Cross will accompany the shipment into North Korea and hand it over.
International Red Cross representatives would also monitor distribution of the aid, mostly corn, he said.
The deal opens up new entry points to North Korea, he said, allowing food aid to flow in via the sea port of Hungnam and two rail links from the Chinese border, at Manpo and Namyang.
Previously, the isolated Stalinist country only allowed aid through the port of Nampo, near Pyongyang, and the rail crossing at Sinuiju, across the border from the Chinese city of Dandong.
A number of conditions agreed by the two Red Cross societies would also be binding for future private donations from the South, he said.
The North agreed to allow organisations to target their donations geographically, Mr Schaar said. The two sides also agreed that aid could be labelled with the names of the South Korean Red Cross and other civilian donor organisations.
Prepackaged commercial food items such as instant noodles would be delivered without special labels, however.
While the North had no problem with the apolitical Red Cross name or logo being attached to food, it was reluctant to allow the names of South Korean donors - seen as damning public evidence that it needed help from its reviled rival.
In South Korea, officials welcomed the first agreement between the two Red Cross societies in 12 years as holding out hope for a change in attitude between Seoul and Pyongyang.