By BO-MI LIM
The Associated Press
Monday, April 16, 2007; 12:05 AM

SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korea is considering holding off on rice aid to North Korea until the communist nation takes steps to shut down its main nuclear reactor, news reports said Monday.

The reports came after the North missed a Saturday deadline to shut down its Yongbyon reactor and allow U.N. inspectors to verify and seal the facility.

"We can't just ignore and do nothing if ... North Korea doesn't take initial steps" to disarm as agreed in February at six-nation nuclear talks, an unnamed South Korean official said, according to the Dong-a Ilbo newspaper. The Chosun Ilbo daily carried a similar report.

The two Koreas are set to begin talks on Wednesday in Pyongyang to discuss the North's request for 400,000 tons of rice.

An official at South Korea's Unification Ministry, which deals with North Korea affairs, said, "Nothing has been decided yet." The official spoke on customary condition of anonymity.

It wasn't clear if the official's comment reflected a step back from the ministry's earlier position that South Korea would give rice to the North even if the shutdown deadline was missed. Vice Unification Minister Shin Eon-sang told reporters earlier this month amid signs of a possible failure to meet the deadline that Seoul will provide the North with rice as planned.

North Korea had until Saturday to shut down its nuclear reactor, but failed to do so because of a delay in the release of its funds frozen in a Macau bank, which was blacklisted by the U.S. for allegedly assisting the communist regime in money-laundering and counterfeiting.

The North has insisted that it won't take steps to disarm until all of the funds are released.

Under an agreement reached in February between North Korea and five other nations _ South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the U.S. _ the North was also to receive 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil to be donated by the South in return for shuttering its reactor.

South Korea periodically sends rice and fertilizer to the impoverished North, which has relied heavily on foreign handouts since the mid-1990s when natural disasters and mismanagement devastated its economy and famine led to the deaths of about 2 million people.

Although the food situation has improved since then, the U.N.'s World Food Program last month said that finding enough to eat was still a daily struggle for millions of North Koreans.

The two Koreas remain technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a cease-fire, but their relations have warmed significantly since their leaders' summit in 2000.