The United States will hold talks on food assistance with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in Beijing, said a U.S. State Department spokeswoman on Wednesday.

Robert King (L), U.S. Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights and Ambassador Ri Gun, DPRK director general for North American Affairs. [Photo: huanqiu.com]

Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said U.S. special envoy for DPRK human rights Robert King is in Beijing now for talks on Thursday.

It follows up on conversations held in the past about whether the U.S. will provide nutritional assistance to DPRK, she said.

She called for "much more strict and clear monitoring systems" in order to resume the assistance.

"So that is topic A for the conversations between special envoy King and his DPRK interlocutors in Beijing, who will include Ambassador Ri Gun, the DPRK director general for North American Affairs," she said, emphasizing that the talks do not mean any decision has been made on the U.S. side, Xinhua reported.

In May, Robert King and the USAID deputy assistant administrator for the office of foreign disaster assistance, Jon Brause, visited DPRK to assess the food situation there after the last U.S. food assistance program to the country was suspended in March 2009.

One thing worth noticing is that during the briefing, Nuland started to use the term "nutritional assistance" instead of food assistance, who said the former is a "broader category of assistance" than food.

She said "nutritional assistance" does not only refer to "sacks of rice or cans of food," but also vitamin supplements, high-protein biscuits and so on, which are for "populations in need."

"So these are the kinds of issues that we need to talk about as we move forward," she added.

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