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WASHINGTON, Friday (AFP,Reuters) The United States said it had sent 40,000 metric tonnes of food promised in February to impoverished North Korea.

The donation was first announced after Secretary of State Colin Powell visited China, Japan and South Korea in February, a trip that took in the inauguration of new South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun who met President George W. Bush at the White House on Wednesday.

"The United States has provided 40,000 metric tonnes of humanitarian food assistance through the World Food Program to North Korea this year," said Brenda Greenberg, a State Department spokeswoman.

"The United States continues to call on North Korea to adhere to the same standards of human access that apply to all recipients of international food assistance." Aid donors to North Korea have in the past expressed concern that their donations have not reached their intended recipients, and may have been diverted the communist state's armed forces.

The department said it was ready to offer Pyongyang an additional 60,000 tonnes of food aid.

Washington has insisted that its status as a major food donor to North Koreans, suffering under successive droughts and the vagaries of the state controlled economic system are separate from its clash with Pyongyang over its nuclear programs.

Meanwhile South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said his decision to link dealings with North Korea to the nuclear crisis showed Seoul will not be "pushed around" by its recalcitrant communist neighbour.

Roh and U.S. President George W. Bush vowed on Wednesday in Washington to halt the North's nuclear aims, saying future inter-Korean exchanges would be "conducted in light of developments on the North Korean nuclear issue."

Roh told reporters on his plane from Washington to San Francisco his 2-month-old government remained committed to retaining contacts with the Northern half of the divided peninsula but Seoul had to respond to Pyongyang's moves.

"While I was in the United States, North Korea announced that it had nullified the South-North denuclearization agreement," he said.

In a slap to Roh, Pyongyang declared this week that the 1991 inter-Korean non-nuclear pledge was a "dead document."

The decision to link Seoul's future dealings with Pyongyang to progress on the nuclear issue "is to show that we also have cards to play," he said.

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