The United Kingdom has decided to cut its humanitarian aid to North Korea due to Pyongyang's "reckless provocations," British minister of state for Asia and the Pacific Mark Field (pictured) told Yonhap on Friday. Field added that it is "very clear" that the isolated country has finally begun to feel the effects of international sanctions imposed on it after a series of ballistic and nuclear missile tests this year, considering reports of state-wide shop shortages.
"We do have a very small amount of ODA (official development assistance) that comes through the department for international development programs. All the work we have done in this regard has been on a humanitarian basis," the official said. "You have a relationship with a country and you expect to have some sense of normal conduct. That being absent at the moment, these relatively limited humanitarian programs will be discontinued." However, Field said that the assistance program would be resumed only if Kim Jong-un "starts to behave in a responsible and less reckless way in the international community."
