Tension still runs deep between the two Koreas after two attacks on the divided peninsula last year killed 50 South Koreans, even as the two sides renew efforts to restart regional talks on disabling the North’s nuclear weapons program.
In August, the reclusive North asked the South to provide food, cement and heavy construction equipment after Seoul offered to send 5 billion won ($4.1 million) of relief aid.
South Korea rejected the request and said it would deliver baby food, biscuits and instant noodles.
An official from Seoul’s unification ministry, which deals with inter-Korean affairs, said the North had failed to respond to the offer, forcing it to end the process.
North Korean state media had said heavy rains and a tropical storm dealt widespread damage to the country’s central region in June and July, leaving more than 8,000 people homeless.
Damage was also extensive in farm regions with 60,000 hectares of land washed away or inundated, exacerbating already chronic food shortages.
In mid-August, the United States also offered North Korea up to $900,000 in emergency flood assistance.
But both Seoul and Washington have refused the North’s broader requests for humanitarian food aid.
Critics say the North has siphoned off food in the past to feed its million-strong army, and South Korean officials have accused Pyongyang of trying to hoard food ahead of a possible third underground nuclear test, which would likely provoke a further tightening of international sanctions.
Last month, a senior official in the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said the North had emerged from a stormy winter and spring better than expected.
A Reuters correspondent who visited North Korea last month said the country appeared to have emerged from the winter and spring crisis, at least in the far north and south, where a variety of crops are nearly ready for harvest.
Nine North Korean defectors arrived in Seoul on Tuesday, after having been under protective custody in Japan for nearly three weeks, officials said.
It is the first time in about four years that defectors from North Korea have arrived in the South after reaching Japan by sea.
