South Korean cars transport 400,000 doses of Tamiflu and Relenza Rotadisk for about 100,000 people to North Korea near Dorasan Inter-Korea Transit Office in Paju, Gyeonggi Province in this Dec. 18, 2009. / Korea Times file

By Park Ji-won

South Korea will send flu medication to North Korea early next week aiming to speed humanitarian aid to the North with the U.S.

An official of the Ministry of Unification said Thursday that South Korean and U.S. officials have agreed via a video call to sending 200,000 doses of Tamiflu and 50,000 packages of medical test kits to North Korea for humanitarian assistance.
"The two agreed on sending Tamiflu to the North," a unification ministry official told reporters on the condition of anonymity.

"We expect that the authorities will finish discussions on delivery schedules within the week and push to send the goods by early next week."

Seoul earlier promised to send the medication by Jan. 11 via a land route over their western border. However, the delivery was abruptly postponed as the government asked for more time. Insiders say the delay was because Seoul and Washington failed to narrow differences in its delivery and monitoring the process.

The government official said (the South) will push for the handover of the goods through discussions with the North over its delivery and takeover while consulting on the effect of the drugs and its monitoring process.

Since the U.S. has eased limits on humanitarian aid to Pyongyang recently amid international sanctions against the North, Seoul has been looking for ways to give the North those supplements amid stalled denuclearization talks between the North and U.S. Pyongyang has been asking for the lifting of sanctions against the country as a prerequisite to seeking denuclearization.

"I understand many American humanitarian aid organizations operating in the DPRK are concerned the strict enforcement of international sanctions has occasionally impeded the legitimate humanitarian assistance to the Korean people," Biegun said in December during a trip to Seoul.

The U.S.' move was considered as an overture to restart talks with the North, which didn't have palpable results during the Singapore summit in June.

Seoul's efforts were backed by a Pyongyang agreement made between two leaders in September to cooperate in tackling the spread of infectious diseases.

The last time Seoul sent Tamiflu packages to North Korea through a land route was December 2009 when then President Lee Myung-bak sent aid to fight the outbreak of H1N1 flu in the North in order to try and limit the spread of the disease.

At that time, the South gave North Korea 400,000 doses of Tamiflu and Relenza Rotadisk for about 100,000 people and $858,000 worth of hand sanitizer. Seoul used more than $15.3 million from the inter-Korean cooperation fund for transportation and other additional costs related to the aid provision.