`6-party talks to take up N.K. rights`

North Korea`s "appalling" human rights situation would be discussed within the six-nation dialogue aimed at ending Pyongyang`s nuclear weapons programs, a U.S. envoy said yesterday.

"The six-party talks include a sub-group of the United States and (North Korea). We will hold bilateral discussions in the context of six-party talks," Robert King, Washington`s representative for North Korean human rights, said following a meeting with Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan.

King arrived in Seoul on Sunday for a five-day visit. This marks his first overseas trip since his term began six weeks ago to succeed Washington`s first-ever such envoy, Jay Lefkowitz.

The stalled multilateral talks have a working group for the discussion of North Korea`s human rights issues. The talks themselves, however, have yet to reopen after the latest round in December 2008.



North Korea has recently been emitting signals that it is prepared to come out to another round of denuclearization discussions.

The North began to boycott the talks in April last year, citing what it called an "unjust" denoucement by the United Nations Security Council of its rocket launch. In May, the North conducted its second nuclear test.

The lack of human rights in the impoverished communist regime has long been a significant hurdle in allowing the North to broaden its international relations.

King yesterday stressed that "greater respect" for human rights from the North is a critical element for normalizing the ties between Pyongyang and Washington.

"That`s one of the important conditions. It is something on which the Congress and the U.S. administration are in complete agreement," he said.

The current situation in the North is "appalling," the envoy said, adding that North Korea "is one of the worst places in terms of a lack of human rights."

King said the United States is seeking to provide new opportunities for those who flee North Korea, calling them refugees under a U.N. convention on asylum seekers.

The U.S. envoy is to meet with North Korean defectors here during his stay.

He also will be holding talks with Vitit Muntarbhorn, the U.N.`s special rapporteur on North Korean human rights, in Seoul. Muntarbhorn arrived here yesterday for a six-day visit.

"I will be supportive of the people`s aspirations for democracy," the rapporteur said in a meeting with Huh Chul, Seoul`s ambassador for Korean Peninsular Peace Regime.

The South Korean Foreign Ministry said Seoul would be working closely with the international society including the United States to help improve human rights conditions in the communist North.

(jemmie@heraldm.com)







By Kim Ji-hyun