ICRC: It's not right to politicize humanitarian assistance

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Europe

02:03

By CGTN's World Insight

While the US-DPRK summit is grabbing all the attention at the moment, the issue of humanitarian aid for the DPRK remains a top concern.

Funding and philanthropic commitment have been made by countries and investors to the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) to operate in the DPRK, and yet those commitments have not yet been fulfilled. Now that the Trump-Kim summit has taken place, will the situation change?

CGTN's Tian Wei talked to Pierre Dorbes, the head of the East Asia regional delegation of the ICRC. He urged world leaders to depoliticize humanitarian assistance to the DPRK.

"Unfortunately, pledges are funding at the moment for the DPRK are quite limited," Dorbes says most of the ICRC's operations in the DPRK lack proper capital.

According to Dorbes, the working conditions in the DPRK are also not ideal. He said, "For the moment we are in the kind of vicious circle, funding is not coming. So we hope with the political negotiation, we can enter into a more virtuous circle."

Dorbes concluded, "If I could provide one advice, that is don't politicize and depoliticized in assistance. We need to be able to operate. We cannot have a black hole in assistance. So, in my opinion, whatever the result of the political dialogue is, that should be funding open to the population in the DPRK."

World Insight with Tian Wei is a 45-minute global affairs and debate show on CGTN. It airs weekdays at 10:15 p.m. BJT (1415GMT), with rebroadcasts at 4:15 a.m. BJT (2015GMT).