South Korean lawmaker Yoon Sang Hyun asserted today that North Korea, which is engaged in an ongoing drive to secure food aid from the international community, actually already has more around one million tons of wartime food provisions.

“The North Korean authorities possess 300,000 tons of food for the regular army and 700,000 for reserve forces and ordinary people, all together a total of one million tons of rice military reserve rice,” Yoon, who represents the Grand National Party, revealed in documents released today.

He went on, “The 300,000 tons of military rice which North Korea possesses is enough to feed the 1.19 million regular forces for 500 days,” but added that also, “North Korea’s one million tons of war time reserves is enough to feed the whole population of 24 million for 83 days.”

In September last year, the Grand National Party floor leader in the National Assembly, Kim Moo Sung also told a meeting of lawmakers, “We adjudge that North Korea has assembled approximately one million tons of military rice reserves.”

Yoon added that the information had been confirmed by South Korea’s intelligence authorities.

Yoon also added that military reserves are not just about food, noting, “Just in military storage areas they have gathered 1.5 million tons of wartime fuel reserves and 1.7 million tons of ammunition.”

“North Korea’s existing wartime fuel and ammunition reserves are of a scale large enough to support 100 days of war,” he concluded, adding that the military build-up is being done on the orders of Kim Jong Il, who demanded that six months of reserves be gathered.