North Korea has recently replaced the deputy chief of its mission to the United Nations in New York, diplomatic sources said Wednesday, a personnel change that followed the recent U.N. passage of a unusually strong human rights resolution against the communist country.
   
"Around two weeks ago, North Korean deputy ambassador to the U.N., Ri Tong-il, was replaced and he returned to the North," one of the sources, well-versed in U.N. matters, told Yonhap News Agency. "As far as I know, his successor, Deputy Ambassador An Myong-hun, has entered New York." 
   
The decision to replace Ri, a well-known U.N. expert, comes as a surprise at a time when the North is undergoing a critical phase at the international body over its human rights situation. 
  
A U.N. committee has recently adopted a resolution that calls on the U.N. Security Council to refer the North's dire human rights situation to the International Criminal Court, the first U.N.-level attempt to bring the North Korean leadership to justice over human rights violations. 
   
The resolution will be put to a vote again this week at a general U.N. meeting while efforts are now underway to adopt the North Korean human rights issue as an agenda item for the Security Council. 
   
The incoming deputy mission chief was previously the counselor at the North Korean mission in Geneva and has served at the U.S. department at the North Korean foreign ministry, as well as the top negotiator for the 2012 food aid talks with the U.S.
  

The U.N. sources, however, dismissed some diplomatic speculation that the recent replacement of Ri was the result of the U.N. mission's failure to block the passage of the human rights resolution.
   
"If it was for the punishment for the North Korea human rights resolution, it would have been more appropriate to punish the ambassador," another source said. "It hardly seems to be a punitive action because the possibility of replacing Deputy Ambassador Ri has long been mentioned after his long stay there," the source noted. 
   
The North has previously expressed strong resentment over the human rights resolution, which it claimed is a U.S.-led plot to topple the regime. The country has also threatened to conduct a nuclear test in retaliation of the resolution. (Yonhap)