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Shin said the government fund would be used to match 9.86 billion won ($10.2 million) worth of funds and goods raised by civic organizations. Later Friday, a North Korean official indicated that his country is likely to receive South Korea's aid. "(The aid) will be accepted if a related unit raises" the issue, said an official at the North Korean side to an inter-Korean committee. South and North Korean officials of the joint committee met at the North’s scenic Mount Geumgang on Friday to discuss the North's flood damage. South Korea's decision came at a policy coordination meeting between the government and the ruling Uri Party held at the National Assembly earlier in the day. The government later convened a meeting of its joint standing committee with civic organizations to announce the plan. In a separate aid package via the country's Red Cross, the government plans to send other supplies that, according to the vice unification minister, cost much more than the items being put together by civic organizations. "Because rice and repair equipment require large funds, the government believes it would be more effective" for the civic organizations to focus on less expensive items, including medicine, clothing, flour and instant noodles, Shin said. Following a meeting with Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok at a Seoul hotel Thursday, South Korea's Red Cross chief Han Wan-sang said his organization agreed to put together a separate aid package, which will include rice, for the impoverished North. Seoul annually provides hundreds of thousands of tons of rice and fertilizer to the impoverished North, which has depended on handouts by South Korea and international relief agencies since the mid-1990s to feed a large number of its people. But the government suspended its regular shipments of humanitarian assistance to the North early last month shortly after Pyongyang test-fired seven ballistic missiles into the East Sea, despite the South's repeated opposition and warnings. The vice unification minister said the size of the Red Cross aid has yet to be decided, but hinted it would be at least 50 billion won. The government provided some 42 billion won worth of assistance through the Red Cross to North Korea when an explosion at a train station in Ryongchon, a town near the North's border with China, left over 150 people killed and some 1,300 others injured, according to the Unification Ministry. "Flood damage is different from (the damage wrought by) the Ryongchong incident. Flood damage is extensive and affects" a larger area, Shin said. The president of the Korean National Red Cross also said on Thursday that the amount of supplies to be provided through his organization would be "substantial enough" to provide actual help to the North. A newspaper published by a pro-Pyongyang organization of Korean residents in Japan reported last week that heavy rains on July 14-16 in the North left a total of 549 people dead, 295 missing and some 3,000 others injured, citing what it claimed to be "official data" from Pyongyang. Shin said the actual number of casualties was likely to be higher, because the tally allegedly produced by Pyongyang was dated July 17 and another round of torrential rains hit the communist state in late July. However, he made it clear that the government's assistance for the North's flood recovery efforts will not lead to the resumption of its regular humanitarian aid for the country. "The government's participation (in civilian efforts) and its assistance through the Red Cross are (types of) emergency relief support that are strictly humanitarian," the vice minister said. "I clearly state that the government has no expectations" or conditions for the North on accepting the aid, he added. Pyongyang rejected an earlier aid offer by the South Korean Red Cross, saying it will overcome the disaster on its own. The vice unification minister said the North was unlikely to reject such an offer again. The North Korean side of an inter-Korean organization filed a request with its South Korean counterpart on Wednesday, asking for food and light construction equipment to help its recovery efforts, while also asking the South Korean side it to relay its request to "many other related organizations." The Koreas have been divided along a heavily-fortified border since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with a cease-fire. Seoul, Aug. 11 (Yonhap News)
