A group of South Korean private aid providers will visit Pyongyang this week to discuss humanitarian assistance to the communist country, officials said Sunday.
The group of 31 officials from 20 aid providers that are affiliated with the Korea NGO Council for Cooperation with North Korea plans to visit the North Korean capital from Wednesday to Saturday for the discussion, according to the Unification Ministry and the local council.
The local council is composed of 59 private aid groups for North Korea. The forthcoming delegation includes the local unit of World Vision and other active domestic North Korea aid groups.
The visit to Pyongyang is the largest in scale by the council, which was founded in 1999 with the goal to spur cooperation among local assistance providers for North Korea.
The Unification Ministry is expected to approve the North Korean trip one or two days before the planned visit.
The traveling officials plan to meet with their North Korean counterparts from the National Reconciliation Council, a government body in charge of dealing with inter-Korean affairs.
Since the private-level humanitarian assistance between the Koreas has been on a hiatus, the officials may delve into general issues rather than specific matters, an official from the local council noted.
This upcoming visit carries special significance because the result of it could determine the course of inter-Korean exchanges down the road.
Exchanges and humanitarian assistance between the Koreas have been on the upturn since the countries struck a rare agreement on Aug. 25 to end military tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
Assisted by the agreement, the monthly tally of South Korean visits to the North soared to 880 in October from the monthly average of just 46 from January to September.
The amount of South Korean private groups’ humanitarian aid to the North also grew to 1.1 billion won ($943,499) in October, a remarkable increase given North Korea’s previous reluctance to accept aid from the South.
“North Korea has yet to respond to our government’s offer of preliminary dialogue for inter-Korean government talks, but if private-level exchanges and cooperation become more active, it could help pave the way for a government dialogue,” a government official said. (Yonhap)
