United Nation's food aid to North Korea has been stopped after Pyongyang said it no longer needed emergency shipments despite concerns that many people are still going hungry. The secretive Stalinist state announced in August that from the end of 2005 it would no longer require food aid from the World Food Programme (WFP) and other international humanitarian agencies, asking for development assistance instead. The United States said on Thursday that it had been forced to suspend food aid to North Korea because of Pyongyang's decision to stop UN distribution of international food assistance. South Korean government officials say Pyongyang apparently wants to build the foundation of its agriculture through long-term investment rather than stop-gap emergency aid. Analysts said the proportion of WFP aid in relation to assistance from South Korea and China had also diminished enough to give North Korea room to reject supplies direct from the United Nations. South Korea has provided the North with 500,000 tonnes of rice and 350,000 tonnes of fertiliser this year.