US looks to speed up aid to NKorea

The United States said Wednesday it will try to speed up private aid into North Korea, in a goodwill gesture as President Donald Trump seeks a fresh summit.

Stephen Biegun, the US special representative on North Korea, said that the United States will be more lenient in enforcing its blanket ban on US citizens' travel to the totalitarian state when dealing with aid workers.

"I understand many humanitarian aid organisations operating in the DPRK are concerned that strict enforcement of international sanctions has occasionally impeded the delivery of legitimate humanitarian assistance to the Korean people," said Biegun, referring to the North by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"I will be sitting down with American aid groups early in the new year to discuss how we can better ensure the delivery of appropriate assistance, particularly through the course of the coming winter," he told reporters as he arrived for talks in South Korea.

The Trump administration has generally refused to let US aid groups operate in North Korea, seeking both to maximise pressure and to ensure the safety of Americans.

North Korea - which for years had received aid from US aid groups, some of them religious - is among the poorest countries in the world.

A famine in the 1990s killed anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of people, according to various estimates.

Trump held an unprecedented summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June and is eager for a second meeting aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.

Announcing the move, Biegun credited North Korea with the swift expulsion of an American who tried to enter illegally last month.

The United States banned citizens from visiting North Korea - the only country for which such a restriction exists - after the detention of Otto Warmbier, a student who was repatriated comatose and died soon afterward.