Few experts doubt that the North's apparent hesitancy to ask for fertiliser aid - a ritual at this time of year - is related to the leadership change in South Korea, where conservative Lee Myung-bak will be sworn in as president on Feb 25.

For years, North Korea has denounced Mr Lee's Grand National Party, which has criticised the South's reconciliation moves with the North for handing out too much unconditional aid.

But Mr Lee's election has put the North in the awkward situation of having to work with someone it previously called a 'philistine' and 'traitor.'

'For the North, a target of heavy criticism and fighting suddenly became a counterpart that it has to discuss aid and cooperation with,' said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at Seoul's University of North Korean Studies.

'It would be difficult for the North to ask for assistance first, because that could be seen as an expression of its weakness.'

The World Food Program predicts the North will be some 1.4 million tonnes short of food this year. The deficit is 'larger than last year, and that's larger than several earlier years,' said Mr Paul Risley, spokesman for the WFP's regional office in Bangkok.

Mr Risley said last year's floods in the North 'really cut into, reduced the overall harvest.' The massive floods, triggered by the heaviest rainfall in 40 years, left some 600 people dead or missing and destroyed more than 11 per cent of the country's crops, according to North Korea's state media.

The North usually makes fertiliser aid requests between mid-January and mid-February for the spring planting season in March. The South's assistance - typically between 200,000 and 500,000 tonnes - accounts for about 20 percent to 30 per cent of the North's annual fertiliser needs.

In the past, Seoul never rejected those demands, although deliveries were once temporarily suspended amid tensions over the North's missile and nuclear programmes. The South Korean fertiliser aid has become a fixture in the North's agricultural planning, analysts say.

'Our provision of rice and fertilizer may not look big, but its absence can considerably affect the North's economy,' said Prof Kim Yong-hyun, a professor at Seoul's Dongguk University.

Such generosity was possible from the South - formerly a staunch anti-communist nation - because the country had two successive liberal presidents whose North Korea policies focused largely on avoiding friction. Seoul gave the aid to the North as humanitarian assistance.

It has been more than a month since Mr Lee's Dec 19 election, but Pyongyang has still not shown any public reaction. It maintained its silence even when Lee said he would not hesitate to criticise the North over its human rights problems - an issue that usually goads the totalitarian nation into launching one of its tirades.

In September last year, Pyongyang halted criticism of Mr Lee as he looked increasingly likely to win the election and instead leveled its rhetoric at another conservative candidate.

Still, the North called in its customary New Year message for continued economic cooperation with the South.

That New Year message also called for 'radically increasing grain output,' saying there is 'no more urgent and important task than solving the problem of food.' 'Fertiliser is an urgent issue for them, and I think they will ask for it,' said a Unification Ministry official on condition of anonymity, citing the issue's sensitivity.

However, the official said the North is expected to make the request through a non-governmental channel because Pyongyang is not sure how incoming President Lee would react. North Korea would lose face if a formal government request was rejected.

Prof Kim, the Dongguk University professor, said he expects the North would wait as long as it can before ultimately asking for fertiliser through an unofficial channel.

'For the North, the issue of fertiliser aid will be the first negotiation project with the incoming government,' Mr Kim said. 'It cannot but take a cautious approach.' -- AP