Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan says the United States has offered to provide 500-thousand tons of food aid to North Korea through the World Food Program (WFP).

The foreign minister told reporters in Washington Thursday that a WFP official will soon visit Pyongyang to discuss food distribution and monitoring.

He added that Seoul will consider a request for food aid if Pyongyang publicly discloses its food situation and asks for such assistance.

The minister said that while food aid is basically given on a humanitarian basis, automatically providing 500-thousand tons of food this year just because the same amount was given last year would mean the aid is not 100 percent humanitarian.