(AP) -- The United States sent a plane loaded with a small but symbolic shipment of emergency aid that was due to arrive in flood-stricken North Korea on Saturday, in the latest sign of a thaw in relations between the countries.
A cargo plane departed Friday from the U.S. packed with $900,000 worth of food, medical aid, soap, blankets and cooking kits, according to the North Carolina-based aid group Samaritan's Purse.
The shipment is to ``let the North Koreans know that we are their friends,'' Franklin Graham, president of the relief agency, said from an airfield in Charlotte, North Carolina, in a video clip posted on the group's website. The clip showed tractors towing boxes to the plane, and the Boeing-747 taking off in a cloud of dust.
Samaritan's Purse said it has pledged $1.2 million in addition to the $900,000 that the U.S. government has allocated for aid to North Korea through U.S.-based charities.
Ken Isaacs, a Samaritan's Purse vice president, said the group has worked with the U.S. government and several other Christian organizations to send the aid as they try to ``continue gaining humanitarian access into North Korea.''
The help comes after U.S. and North Korean officials met in New York in late July for talks seen as a sign of a thaw in relations between the wartime foes.
Officials say they discussed ways to restart nuclear disarmament negotiations that have been stalled for more than two years. Washington says Pyongyang must prove its commitment to dismantling its nuclear arms programs before the talks on providing aid in exchange for disarmament can resume.
