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N. Korea denies giving food for citizens to military
North Korea denied on Thursday suggestions it diverted food aid intended for its hungry citizens to its military, calling the charges a plot by South Koreans opposed to its communist government.
- Agencies
- Published: 12:20 February 22, 2008
Seoul: North Korea denied on Thursday suggestions it diverted food aid intended for its hungry citizens to its military, calling the charges a plot by South Koreans opposed to its communist government.
Last week, South Korea's Defence Ministry said border guards had observed front-line North Korean soldiers unloading hundreds of sacks bearing the logo of the South's Korean Red Cross, which is responsible for rice aid shipments to the North.
Ministry officials said they presumed the sacks contained rice aid, but were unable to confirm it. Rice aid is normally delivered by sea, not along the land border.
The alleged rice aid diversion "is something that never actually occurred and should also not occur," North Korea's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland said in a statement.
The committee said the suspicions were "a completely baseless plot made by South Korea's ultraconservative forces."
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