The U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights issues will visit Geneva and Brussels next week for meetings with officials of the United Nations and other European officials to discuss the human rights situation in the communist nation, the State Department said Thursday.

Amb. Robert King will be in Geneva on Tuesday before traveling to Brussels from Wednesday through Friday to meet with senior European Union officials, civil society leaders and others for consultations on a wide range of human rights and humanitarian issues, the department said in a release.

The department provide no further specifics.

The European Union and the U.S. worked together to get a landmark resolution on North Korea's human rights record to pass through the U.N. General Assembly last year. The resolution calls for referring the issue to the International Criminal Court. (Yonhap)