US envoy to attend Geneva meeting on N. Korean human rights

WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- The United States plans to send a special envoy to a U.N. meeting in Geneva next week on North Korea's human rights situation, the State Department said Saturday.

Robert King, the department's special envoy on the North's human rights, will visit Geneva on Monday and Tuesday to participate in the 19th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council. The session is to review North Korea's track record on human rights.

"In Geneva, he will meet with the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the DPRK, Marzuki Darusman," the department said in a press release, using the acronym for the North's formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

King is also scheduled to visit Rome on Wednesday to meet officials of the World Food Program, it added. King will be joined there by Jon Brause, deputy assistant administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which handles Washington's economic and humanitarian aid worldwide.

King and Brause will "brief on administrative details of the nutritional assistance program announced by the United States and North Korea on February 29," according to the department.

The U.S. officials met with North Korean counterparts in Beijing last week to discuss "administrative" issues to implement Washington's promise to provide 240,000 metric tons of food aid to the North.

In return, Pyongyang agreed to freeze its uranium-enrichment facilities in Yongbyon under the monitoring of U.N. nuclear watchdog and impose a moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests.

The U.S. is expected to soon announce a concrete timetable for its planned shipment of food mainly in the form of biscuits, enhanced milk formula and other nutritional supplements for children, pregnant women and the elderly. The U.S. has ruled out rice or grain, which could be diverted to the military.