South Korea has announced plans to give $7.3 million worth of humanitarian aid to North Korea.
About $6 million of the aid will be shipped to the North through UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, and the rest will be provided by five private humanitarian aid groups.
Most of the aid will consist of food, vaccines, medicine and nutritional supplements for malnourished children and pregnant women in the impoverished North.
This shipment will be the first government-level aid from the South since President Park Geun-hye took office in February. Park vowed to take a two-track approach toward the belligerent North, reports Wall Street Journal.
The move is seen as a thinly veiled attempt to lure Pyongyang into giving ground in negotiations over reopening the jointly-run Kaesong industrial park after talks reached a stalemate.
“The government will make a final proposal for talks with North Korea to discuss the complex issue on Kaesong,” Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jaae said in a statement.
