US, N.Korea to meet next week to finalize food aid

US and North Korean officials will meet next week in Beijing to finalize plans for food aid as agreed in a surprise recent denuclearization deal, the State Department said Friday.

The announcement of new talks came despite fresh bellicose statements by North Korea against US-allied South Korea, which State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland described as "unfortunate."

Nuland said that Robert King, the US envoy on human rights in North Korea who has been the pointman on food assistance, will meet in the Chinese capital on Wednesday for talks with a counterpart from Pyongyang.

"The idea is to finalize all of the technical arrangements so that the nutritional assistance can begin to move," Nuland told reporters.

"My understanding is we're down to issues like what port, when, who manages it, how do we count, how do we monitor," she said.

North Korea and the United States two days ago announced a surprise agreement under which Pyongyang said it would freeze its nuclear and missile tests and uranium enrichment and allow back UN inspectors.

The United States said in the deal that it would provide 240,000 metric tons of nutritional assistance to the communist state. Officials said the items would be directed toward young children and pregnant women to decrease chances of diversion to the military.

The nuclear agreement did not directly address the North's stormy relations with the South. In a statement Friday, the North's supreme military command renewed threats to launch a "sacred war" against the neighboring state.

Nuland said of the North's statement: "It is unfortunate. Frankly, it's not helpful to the kind of environment that we're trying to foster."

She said that North Korea -- known officially as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) -- needed to improve ties with the South -- the Republic of Korea (ROK) -- for a resumption of six-nation nuclear talks.

"We continue to say to the DPRK and make clear to them that from our perspective, a condition of being able to go back to the six-party talks includes continuing to improve their relationship with the ROK," Nuland said.

North and South Korea remain technically at war from their 1950-53 conflict. Pyongyang in 2010 shelled an island in the South and was accused of torpedoing a warship, incidents that killed 50 people in total.

North Korea wants a resumption of six-nation nuclear talks, under which the United States and its partners would consider providing light-water reactors to provide electricity to the impoverished state.

The North renounced the talks in 2009, accusing the United States of hostility. The talks included China, the two Koreas, Japan, Russia and the United States.