DATE: Thursday, July 3, 1997                TAG: 9707030661

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY CONNIE SAGE, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   49 lines

S. KOREAN OFFICIAL DENIES WITHHOLDING FOOD AID TO NORTH

Food and other aid ``will be ready'' for famine-stricken North Korea if it comes to the table for peace talks, Kun Woo Park, South Korean ambassador to the United States, said Wednesday night.

A year after peace talks among North Korea, South Korea, China and the United States were proposed, the communist North on Monday took a ``small step'' by agreeing to preliminary talks Aug. 5 in New York.

``Once full party talks convene, we are ready to provide the North more food stuff,'' Park said at a World Affairs Council of Greater Hampton Roads dinner at Virginia Wesleyan College. ``Private investors are ready to invest in the North.''

Park was visibly irritated when a person asked why South Korea was withholding massive food aid ``when 5 million people are facing starvation.''

``The Korean government never objected to giving food to North Korea,'' Park said. ``We were the first ones to provide food two years ago with $250 million in rice. They detained the crew members for two weeks and hoisted the North Korean flag on the ship'' carrying the rice.

The North Koreans would not allow observers into the country to determine the extent of the famine, he said. ``They wanted to tear up the bags of noodles because the bags said, `Made in South Korea.' ''

The North has the money if it wants to spend it for food, Park said, claiming that the country spent $100 million on April 25 to celebrate the 85th birthday of North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung, ``who has been deceased for three years.''

A three-year mourning period for the dictator ends Tuesday, Park said, ``and we'll see if his son - I call him `Junior Kim' - will succeed him. He doesn't have the charisma that his father had, and the economic situation is different. It's near famine.''

Communist North Korea and democratic South Korea have been divided since 1945. If the North Koreans ``come to the table for peace talks, aid will be ready,'' Park said, ``not only for food, but investment in North Korea.''

He said the South ``is growing closer to help with food aid, but looking forward to Korean unification very soon.''

A unified Korea will ``be a real problem for us,'' Park said. Before Germany was united, the gross domestic product ratio between west and east was 4 to 1. The ratio between North and South Korea is ``at least 25-to-1,'' Park said.

``We know how heavy a burden we will have, but this is our destiny. Once we start, the North will give us a good hand. They are very sensitive people - only the (Communist) ideology has made them the way they are.'' KEYWORDS: SOUTH KOREA

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