Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung has dismissed charges that he made a secret agreement with North Korea on the amount of aid it would receive at last week's inter-Korean ministerial talks.

Briefing the Uri Party leadership on the results of the talks, Lee stressed that he did not sign an under-the-table deal with the North as there was no need to do so. He said that Pyongyang had demanded 400-thousand tons of rice and 300-thousand tons of fertilizer and that the two sides agreed to take up the matter through further talks.

South Korea’s provision of fertilizer to North Korea requires parliamentary approval to tap special inter-Korean cooperation funds. In addition, the rice aid can be shipped only after a committee on inter-Korean economic cooperation okays the deal and the two Koreas sign a loan agreement.

After returning home from Pyongyang Friday, Lee said that the South agreed with the North in principle to provide 400-thousand tons of rice and 300-thousand tons of fertilizer aid. But later, he said that those amounts were just what the North had demanded, touching off speculation of a backdoor agreement.