Reports - North Korea to open border for aid

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea reportedly agreed Friday to open its heavily armed border for relief goods from the South, countering criticism it would rather remain isolated than accept aid for victims of a deadly train explosion. North Korea's Red Cross sent a telephone message to its South Korean counterpart Friday, saying it would allow South relief trucks to travel to the town of Kaesong just across the countries' border, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported. Other local media carried similar reports. Red Cross and government officials were not available for comment. In its message, North Korea said it would take over the South Korean trucks loaded with school supplies -- including blackboards, desks and chairs -- at Kaesong, the reports said.

The suggestion fell short of South Korea's demand that its trucks drive the length of the reclusive country to the site of last week's blast near the North Korean border with China. But it was a concession from the North, which had refused to open the border, the world's most fortified buffer zone, for relief goods.

The school supplies are part of a $25 million aid package South Korea agreed to ship to the North. Most of the goods will be delivered by ship.

Earlier Friday, a South Korean cargo plane flew across the border into North Korea for the first time and unloaded $470,000 worth of first-aid kits, blankets and other aid in the airport outside Pyongyang, the North's capital.

The April 22 explosion in the North Korean town of Ryongchon killed 161 people, including 76 children in a nearby school. It also injured 1,300 people and destroyed 8,100 homes.

The disaster is believed to have been sparked by a train laden with oil and chemicals hitting power lines. Nearly 400 victims remained hospitalized -- many of them children.

South Korea has been the quickest and most generous provider of international aid. So far, it has sent or pledged $26.5 million in aid, nearly four times the combined total of aid donations from the rest of the world.

The United States, Russia, China, Australia, Germany and Japan also have offered aid.

But the North angered many South Koreans by refusing to open its border and rejecting the South's offer to send doctors to Ryongchon. The Stalinist regime is extremely reluctant to expose its hunger-stricken population to outsiders.

On Friday, KCNA, North Korea's state-run news agency, denied responding passively to outside offers, saying the North had an "advantageous medical system, able medical staff and competent medical institutions."

KCNA also said its military, the backbone of leader Kim Jong Il's totalitarian rule, was quick to respond to the disaster.

"It was ... servicemen who came here first with relief goods," KCNA quoted Han Ki Bok, a 47-year-old coal miner in Ryongchon, as saying. "Our army is, indeed, the best."

Soldiers "rushed to the spot with several tons of rice, quilts, clothes, shoes, kitchen utensils, school things and satchels on the evening of April 22, the very day of the explosion," the news agency said.