U.S. to urge N. Korea to accept COI recommendations: King
2014/04/09 14:11
SEOUL, April 9 (Yonhap) -- The United States will continue to urge North Korea to accept recent United Nations recommendations to improve its human rights conditions, a U.S. envoy said Wednesday, calling for the international community's support in holding the country accountable for its "outrageous" violation of human rights.
The remarks by Robert King, the special U.S. envoy on North Korean human rights, came weeks after the Commission of Inquiry (COI), the first-ever body commissioned by the U.N. to investigate North Korea's human rights violations, submitted its report to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
In the report, the three COI investigators confirmed North Korea's "widespread, systematic and gross" violations of North Koreans' human rights, recommending the communist country to improve its rights conditions. In a follow-up step, the U.N. council adopted a resolution calling for efforts to hold the North Korean regime accountable for the crimes against humanity.
"We will continue to work together with the government of South Korea and the international community to urge North Korea to make progress and accept the recommendations of the COI," King said during a special lecture at a Seoul university.
"Looking at North Korea's human rights situation, I remain convinced that the international community must hold North Korea accountable for its deplorable human rights record," he said. "It (the resolution) reflects the consensus of the international community regarding the seriousness of the human rights situation in North Korea."
The U.S. is open to improving relations with North Korea if it is willing to take steps "in a more positive direction," King said, echoing the U.S. government's stance on its strained relations with the communist country.
The North has repeatedly called for talks with the U.S., but the U.S. has been wary of resuming the contact after the aid-for-denuclearization agreement in 2012 fell apart with the North conducting a nuclear test in defiance of the pact.
"If North Koreans are willing to live up to their international commitments and respect international obligations imposed by the U.N. Security Council, there's possibility for considerable improvement in relations between the U.S. and North Korea," King said. "Unless North Koreans are willing to take concrete steps to deal with these concerns, it is going to be very difficult to improve relations with North Korea," the U.S. official said, referring to troubling issues on human rights, recent military provocations and security risks posed by the communist country.
King also underlined the importance of breaking down the information blockage posed by the North Korean regime, saying increasing North Korean citizens' exposure to the outside world would help improve the human rights conditions in the tightly controlled nation.
"We must work to break down North Korea's government monopoly on the control of information and work together to increase North Koreans' exposure to ideas, conditions and reality of the world beyond the borders of North Korea," he said.
"I think people in North Korea are reaching out and trying to find additional information about what is happening beyond their borders and as people became increasingly aware of what is happening elsewhere, this blockage of information is beginning to break down," King noted.
Touching on North Korea's shocking execution of leader Kim Jong-un's once-powerful uncle Jang Song-thaek, King told a story about a group of foreigners who saw the breaking news on TV about the execution while having a dinner at a noisy, crowded restaurant in Pyongyang. "The effect was immediate. The restaurant fell totally silent."
"Everybody knew what this meant, and everybody knew that could be them. And I think this fear of what might happen and the willingness of the regime to take very drastic steps make people very cautious about rising up and doing something," he said.
King was in Seoul since Saturday for a six-day visit to discuss the human rights issues in North Korea, including U.S. efforts to secure the release of Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American missionary who has been detained in North Korea for a year and half on charges of trying to overthrow the regime.
Robert King, the special U.S. envoy on North Korean human rights, gives a lecture at a local university in Seoul on April 9, 2014. (Yonhap)
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