S.Korea to announce food aid plan for North - Yonhap

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea plans to announce this week a plan to resume humanitarian food aid for the impoverished North Korea, Seoul's Yonhap News reported on Sunday.

Following the North's request for aid earlier this month, the South Korean government is considering sending 10,000-30,000 tonnes of corn, Yonhap said citing government sources.

The South's President Lee Myung-bak ended a decade of unconditional handouts to North Korea by linking aid to nuclear disarmament, but a series of conciliatory gestures from Pyongyang have helped defrost ties and raised some hopes of a return to stalled international nuclear talks.

President Lee, visiting Thailand, urged Asia-Pacific leaders on Sunday to support a new diplomatic approach to pressuring the North into giving up its nuclear ambition in return for massive aid.

South Korea in the past had provided up to 500,000 tonnes of rice and 300,000 tonnes of fertiliser a year.

Flooding over the past few years pushed down domestic production in the North, which faces chronic food shortage and has relied on aid from South Korea, China and the U.N. World Food Programme.

(Reporting by Rhee So-eui; Editing by Sugita Katyal)