ID :
111528
Sun, 03/14/2010 - 13:21
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/111528
The shortlink copeid
U.S. to raise N.K. rights issue after progress in denuclearization: envoy
By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, March 13 (Yonhap) -- The United States will raise the issue of North
Korean human rights in future six-party nuclear talks, once they have resumed and
made a certain amount of progress, a U.S. envoy said.
"At this point, what we need to do is restart the six-party talks," Robert King,
U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, said Friday in a media
roundtable about the release of the State Department's 2009 Human Rights Report
the previous day.
But King added: "The six-party talks are not just one little narrow box," hoping
that the multilateral nuclear talks will become the venue to address human rights
and other issues involving the reclusive communist North.
"The relationship between the United States and North Korea is very much going to
be affected and influenced by North Korea's record on human rights."
The six-party talks -- which seek North Korea's denuclearization in return for
economic and diplomatic incentives -- have not been held since December 2008, and
the North threatened to quit them entirely after the U.N. imposed sanctions on
Pyongyang for its nuclear and missile tests last spring.
Pyongyang demands the sanctions be lifted as a precondition for its return to the
six-party talks. Washington insists the North come back to the nuclear dialogue
first.
North Korea also wants talks toward a peace treaty officially ending the 1950-53
Korean War before it returns to the nuclear talks, which have been on and off
since their inception in 2003 and involve the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan
and Russia.
State Department spokesman Philip Crowley recently made remarks that were similar
to King's.
"To the extent that, at some point in time, once North Korea's taken steps that
we've outlined (for the North's denuclearization), if there is a serious
discussion about normalization with the United States, we would expect that human
rights will continue to be part of that discussion," he said.
The spokesman, however, said King will not be part of the U.S. delegation to the
nuclear talks, a decision apparently aimed at not jeopardizing the fragile
nuclear talks.
In a report to sum up his four-year tenure in January last year, King's
predecessor, Jay Lefkowitz, urged the Obama administration to emphasize human
rights in the six-party talks and link any aid to Pyongyang with human rights
improvements.
The State Department said in its 2009 report that North Korea's human rights
record remains "deplorable," and that people are governed under an "absolute"
dictatorship by leader Kim Jong-il.
North Koreans are "denied freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association,
and the government attempted to control all information," the report said, noting
reports of "extrajudicial killings, disappearances, arbitrary detention, arrests
of political prisoners, harsh and life-threatening prison conditions, and
torture."
hdh@yna.co.kr
(END)
WASHINGTON, March 13 (Yonhap) -- The United States will raise the issue of North
Korean human rights in future six-party nuclear talks, once they have resumed and
made a certain amount of progress, a U.S. envoy said.
"At this point, what we need to do is restart the six-party talks," Robert King,
U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, said Friday in a media
roundtable about the release of the State Department's 2009 Human Rights Report
the previous day.
But King added: "The six-party talks are not just one little narrow box," hoping
that the multilateral nuclear talks will become the venue to address human rights
and other issues involving the reclusive communist North.
"The relationship between the United States and North Korea is very much going to
be affected and influenced by North Korea's record on human rights."
The six-party talks -- which seek North Korea's denuclearization in return for
economic and diplomatic incentives -- have not been held since December 2008, and
the North threatened to quit them entirely after the U.N. imposed sanctions on
Pyongyang for its nuclear and missile tests last spring.
Pyongyang demands the sanctions be lifted as a precondition for its return to the
six-party talks. Washington insists the North come back to the nuclear dialogue
first.
North Korea also wants talks toward a peace treaty officially ending the 1950-53
Korean War before it returns to the nuclear talks, which have been on and off
since their inception in 2003 and involve the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan
and Russia.
State Department spokesman Philip Crowley recently made remarks that were similar
to King's.
"To the extent that, at some point in time, once North Korea's taken steps that
we've outlined (for the North's denuclearization), if there is a serious
discussion about normalization with the United States, we would expect that human
rights will continue to be part of that discussion," he said.
The spokesman, however, said King will not be part of the U.S. delegation to the
nuclear talks, a decision apparently aimed at not jeopardizing the fragile
nuclear talks.
In a report to sum up his four-year tenure in January last year, King's
predecessor, Jay Lefkowitz, urged the Obama administration to emphasize human
rights in the six-party talks and link any aid to Pyongyang with human rights
improvements.
The State Department said in its 2009 report that North Korea's human rights
record remains "deplorable," and that people are governed under an "absolute"
dictatorship by leader Kim Jong-il.
North Koreans are "denied freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association,
and the government attempted to control all information," the report said, noting
reports of "extrajudicial killings, disappearances, arbitrary detention, arrests
of political prisoners, harsh and life-threatening prison conditions, and
torture."
hdh@yna.co.kr
(END)
