PAJU, South Korea (AFP) ? South Korean trucks loaded with flour aid for North Korea crossed the tense border Tuesday for the first time since the communist country shelled a frontline island last year.
The shipment followed a ceremony attended by some 30 people from the Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation, a Seoul-based civic group, at the Imjingak tourist site near the border.
"We hope our humanitarian aid will lead to fresh inter-Korean ties," council head Kim Deog-Ryong told reporters as 12 trucks carrying a total of 300 tonnes of flour headed for the North Korean city of Sariwon.
The council said it would send some 2,500 tonnes of flour including Tuesday's shipment by the end of August if it wins approval from the Seoul government, which must by law approve all cross-border contacts.
"We believe our aid will play a positive role in creating a favourable mood for inter-Korean dialogue and easing tensions on the Korean peninsula," it said in a statement.
As relations worsened in 2008, Seoul halted an annual government shipment of 400,000 tonnes of rice to its impoverished neighbour, although it allowed some civilian groups to keep sending aid.
Seoul suspended approval for civilian flour shipments after the North's island attack killed four South Koreans including civilians. Seoul officials believe flour can be diverted easily to the military.
Ties with the North are at their lowest ebb in almost a decade. However, South Korea this week allowed Kim's group and another private organisation to send a total of 400 tonnes of flour.
Foreign Minister Kim Sung-Hwan said Monday that unexpected talks last week between nuclear envoys from the two Koreas on the sidelines of a summit in Indonesia opened the way for better ties, but cautioned this would take time.
The North, where hundreds of thousands of people died in a famine in the 1990s, suffers chronic food shortages. This year it asked the United States and other nations for food aid as international assistance dwindled.
United Nations agencies say some six million people urgently need food. The United States sent an aid assessment team in May but no decision has yet been announced.
The European Union said this month that it would deliver 10 million euros in emergency food aid to the country to help 650,000 people at risk of dying.
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