Long drought aggravates food shortages in North Korea

SEOUL - North Korea said on Wednesday that it was suffering its worst drought in 37 years, adding to a food crisis that the United Nations said would worsen in coming months without urgent outside aid.

The two groups, the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation, warned that North Korea's early season crops like wheat and barley, which will be harvested next month, were likely to suffer from"widespread low rainfall and lack of snow cover, which left crops exposed to freezing temperatures during winter".

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un has been hoping to win relief from the sanctions in return for the partial dismantlement of his country's nuclear weapons facilities. In February, he met President Donald Trump for the second time, but talks in Vietnam collapsed after Mr Trump refused to lift sanctions until North Korea relinquished all its nuclear weapons.

UN relief agencies have appealed annually for donations to help alleviate widespread malnutrition among children and nursing mothers in North Korea. But they have dwindled in recent years, as the North financed its nuclear weapons programme with resources Washington said should have been used to feed its people.

South Korea is seeking to provide humanitarian food aid to North Korea as a goodwill gesture that it hopes will help the North refrain from weapons tests and return to the negotiating table. Mr Trump supports South Korea's efforts to provide aid, according to the office of President Moon Jae-in of South Korea.

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