North Korea has said it is ready to accept flood relief from South Korea for the first time in two years, but wants more details of the aid on offer, a government official in Seoul said on Monday.
A spokesman for the South's Unification Ministry said the North had responded to Seoul's aid proposal in a message sent through the Red Cross at the Panmunjom truce village on their heavily-militarised border.
‘It said it was ready to accept aid, but asked us to present a detailed plan about items our side plans to send,’ the spokesman said, adding that Pyongyang wanted the information exchanged in document form.
‘However, our side hopes there will be face-to-face contacts. We will send a reply after discussions our side,’ he said.
South Korea had made its proposal last week - the first such aid offer since ties with Pyongyang sank into a deep freeze following the death of the North's leader Kim Jong-Il last December.
Tensions were further fuelled by a joint US-South Korea military exercise last month that the North denounced as a provocative rehearsal for war.
The impoverished North is grappling with the after-effects of floods in June and July that killed 569 people and inundated 161,310 acres of crop-bearing land, according to official figures from Pyongyang.
A spokesman for the South's Unification Ministry said the North had responded to Seoul's aid proposal in a message sent through the Red Cross at the Panmunjom truce village on their heavily-militarised border.
‘It said it was ready to accept aid, but asked us to present a detailed plan about items our side plans to send,’ the spokesman said, adding that Pyongyang wanted the information exchanged in document form.
‘However, our side hopes there will be face-to-face contacts. We will send a reply after discussions our side,’ he said.
South Korea had made its proposal last week - the first such aid offer since ties with Pyongyang sank into a deep freeze following the death of the North's leader Kim Jong-Il last December.
Tensions were further fuelled by a joint US-South Korea military exercise last month that the North denounced as a provocative rehearsal for war.
The impoverished North is grappling with the after-effects of floods in June and July that killed 569 people and inundated 161,310 acres of crop-bearing land, according to official figures from Pyongyang.