US politician Bill Richardson, who maintains contacts with North Korea, said he saw a window to resume diplomacy and supported sending food aid to the impoverished communist state.

Richardson, a former US ambassador to the United Nations and ex-governor of New Mexico, backed similar calls by former president Jimmy Carter, who said after a recent visit that North Korea wanted talks with the outside world.

"The North Koreans have behaved terribly, but at the same time I think there's a new pragmatism there. They have not lately been terribly negative or destructive," Richardson told AFP on Thursday.

"I think we should take advantage of a little bit of dialogue momentum," he said, supporting either a resumption of six-nation denuclearization negotiations or talks between North and South Korea.

Richardson, a longtime US troubleshooter on North Korea, doubted that talks would yield major results but said there were few other options.

"The alternative is for them to continue building more nuclear weapons and continue disrupting the international community," he said.

Richardson supported a request by private US humanitarian groups for the green light to provide 160,000 to 175,000 tons of food to North Korea, which would meet about half of a request by the regime.

President Barack Obama's administration and South Korea have called for further study, with some officials suspecting that North Korea is exaggerating its woes to stock up for mass national celebrations planned next year.

"The administration is understandably cautious, but this is humanitarian assistance. People are starving," Richardson said, while calling for guarantees that the food would go to those in need.

Richardson said he believed the assistance could also pay diplomatic dividends, arguing: "I think that's a good step that will improve an atmosphere for talks."

Richardson, a former presidential candidate, is a member of Obama's Democratic Party. Conservatives, including lawmakers from the rival Republican Party, have been particularly skeptical about assistance to North Korea.

Bruce Klingner, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, recently argued that while North Korea had real needs, it was "not unique amidst other pressing global needs."

"Pyongyang's refusal to implement economic reform and its belligerence against the very countries from which it seeks aid should preclude it from receiving large-scale aid," Klingner said.

He went on to warn that the North could seek aid every year without changes.

After his visit to North Korea, Carter accused the United States and South Korea of withholding aid for political reasons and called it a "human rights violation." He said Pyongyang was ready to talk to Washington and Seoul.

But in an account of his trip posted later on the Carter Center website, he said his talks were "surprisingly negative and confrontational" with nominal head of state Kim Yong-Nam condemning past US policy toward North Korea.

Richardson last visited North Korea in December, when he said he persuaded the regime not to respond to live-fire drills by South Korea.

The US ally had put on the show of force after North Korea killed four people in a rare shelling of a civilian area in the South. Pyongyang was also blamed last year for the sinking of a South Korean warship that killed 46.

Richardson was in Washington for several events, including receiving an award for his service from Refugees International, which advocates assistance for displaced people.