South Korea ready to provide corn to food-short North

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea is ready to provide the reclusive North with a small amount of food aid, a minister said on Wednesday, playing down reports that it may be facing famine.

Flooding last year, higher commodity prices and political wrangling with major donor South Korea have pushed North Korea to a food shortfall similar to ones it faced about a decade ago when famine killed an estimated 1 million people, experts have said.

Unification Minister Kim Ha-joong told reporters South Korea had contacted the North about providing 50,000 metric tons of corn, as agreed to in a previous deal, but had yet to receive a reply.

"We are trying to pursue the corn aid despite the continued attack from the North," Kim said.

North Korea has branded conservative President Lee Myung-bak "a traitor to the nation" over his calls to restrict the free flow of aid the North had seen under his liberal predecessors and tie handouts to how well the North lives up to an international deal to end its nuclear weapons program.

North Korea has said it is willing to cut off all dialogue with Seoul in anger at Lee's hardline stance and even threatened to reduce its neighbor to ashes.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said in late March it expects North Korea to have a shortfall of about 1.66 million metric tons in cereals for the year ending in October 2008, which would be the largest deficit in about seven years.

Kim said the North was reporting a deficit of 1.2 million metric tons. "It is a bit difficult but not a serious situation," he told the news briefing quoting from the North's official media.

South Korea usually sends about 400,000 to 500,000 metric tons of rice aid a year to North Korea. The Lee government has yet to send aid, saying it is waiting for a request from the North.

(Reporting by Jack Kim; Writing by Jon Herskovitz)