North Korea accepts US help

2004-05-05 09:21

Seoul - North Korea will accept proposed US aid for the victims of a deadly train explosion in the communist state last month, Pyongyang's deputy ambassador to the United Nations was reported as saying on Wednesday.

Yonhap News Agency quoted Han Song-Ryol as saying that the Stalinist state had accepted the aid offer through contacts in New York.

Washington has pledged $100 000 through the Red Cross for North Koreans hit by the April 22 train blast which killed more than 150 people and left 1 300 injured in Ryongchon near the border with China.

Han was the first North Korean senior official to confirm Pyongyang's decision to accept the US aid and said such contacts could build trust between the two sides, locked in a stand-off over North Korea's nuclear weapons drive.

"The fundamental problems lying between the United States and North Korea are (mutual) mistrust and misunderstanding.

"If the two countries are able to build up trust through this kind of contact, it would help improve bilateral relations," he said.

- AFP