North Korea on Saturday welcomed a US decision to provide the impoverished country with food aid, saying the move will help promote "understanding and confidence" between the two countries.

"The DPRK (North Korea) is ready to provide all technical conditions necessary for the food delivery," Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency said.

"The food aid of the US government will help settle the food shortage in the DPRK to a certain extent and contribute to promoting the understanding and confidence between the peoples of the two countries," it said.

The United States said on Friday it will send 500 000 metric tons of emergency food aid to North Korea over the next year under a deal with Pyongyang permitting better monitoring of deliveries.

The US Agency for International Development said it hoped shipments, which were suspended in January 2006 when the Stalinist state "severely limited humanitarian monitoring and access," would resume in June under the deal.

US experts have warned that North Korea faced the risk of a new famine, a decade after up to one million people died of starvation.

USAID spokesperson David Snider told AFP that North Korea itself estimates it is 1.5 million tons short of its minimum requirements to prevent a critical food shortage.

But he added that outside experts fear the gap could be even greater.

The United States hopes to make up for a third of the shortfall with North Korea receiving 400 000 tons through the World Food Program (WFP) and about 100 000 tons via US non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Chronic food shortages worsened this year due to soaring grain prices, crop damage following floods last summer and dwindling foreign donations.

Ending North Korea's nuclear programme

The US announcement came as progress was being made at the six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear programme.

North Korea has handed over documents to the United States, which will be used for verification of its declaration of its nuclear programme.

The North, which staged its first nuclear test in October 2006, is disabling its plants under a deal reached under the six-party talks last year.

AFP