The United States may suspend shipments of food aid to North Korea if the United Nations stops or reduces its distribution efforts in the country, a senior US official said on Wednesday.

The United States has delivered about half of its 50,000 metric ton food pledge to North Korea through the UN World Food Program (WFP)'s distribution system, and was set to begin delivery of the rest later this month, according to a statement by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which oversees US humanitarian aid abroad.

Andrew Natsios, administrator for the USAID, said Washington was concerned about the humanitarian situation in North Korea. The USAID would suspend procurement and delivery of the rest of its food aid commitment for this year if the WFP were forced to end food distribution.

Pyongyang said in September that its food situation had improved and wanted emergency food aid shifted to development assistance, leaving the WFP and other aid agencies in the DPRK scrambling to negotiate terms to stay on.

The WFP began working in North Korea in the mid-1990s.

Natsios said in a statement that about half of a June commitment by the United States for 50,000 tons of food to be distributed up to the end of 2005 had been delivered or was being delivered through a WFP emergency feeding operation. But the balance was scheduled to be procured later this month.

"If the WFP operation is no longer in place, with its full complement of international staff, there will be no way to even minimally assure that this food gets to its intended recipients," Natsios said.

His statement was issued on the same day when the six-party talks, involving the United States, the DPRK, the Republic of Korea, China, Japan and Russia, began a fresh round of talks in Beijing on the nuclear issue in Koran peninsula.

(Xinhua News Agency November 10, 2005)