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> 뉴스

E.U., Japan to submit N. Korea human rights resolution to U.N.: report

2008-10-25 11:39 연합뉴스

E.U., Japan to submit N. Korea human rights resolution to U.N.: report

    NK rights-UN resolution

     SEOUL, Oct. 25 (Yonhap) -- The European Union and Japan plan to submit a joint resolution pressing North Korea to improve its human rights conditions to the United Nations next week, a U.S. report said Saturday.

   Quoting an official from the French mission to the U.N., the Voice of America said the North Korea resolution will be submitted by Thursday to the U.N. Third Committee, which deals with social and humanitarian issues.

   Since 2003, a non-binding resolution on North Korea's dismal human rights conditions had been adopted annually by the U.N. human rights council, and starting in 2005 by the higher authority of the U.N. General Assembly.

   The report quoted a spokesman for the South Korean mission to the U.N. as saying that Seoul will vote on the resolution the same way it did last year.

   South Korea was consistently absent or abstained from the vote until 2006, when it cast a 'yes' vote for the first time following the election of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, a former South Korean minister. Seoul's two previous liberal presidents, Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, prioritized reconciliation with Pyongyang, which remains highly sensitive to the issue of human rights. President Lee Myung-bak, who took office in February, shifted Seoul's focus to its alliance with Washington, toughening its position against Pyongyang.

   The U.N. committee is expected to vote on this year's resolution in late November before passing it on to the U.N. General Assembly, the report said.

   The North Korean human rights issue will come under the spotlight in a forum set for next week in Seoul and hosted by South Korea's National Human Rights Council.

   The U.N. investigator on North Korean human rights, Vitit Muntarbhorn, is expected to renew his calls on North Korea to halt public executions and torture and to provide access to food and other daily necessities for all its people.

   North Korea has never allowed Muntarbhorn, a native of Thailand and a legal specialist appointed to the U.N. position in 2003, to visit the country.

   hkim@yna.co.kr
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