EU Urges NK to Improve Human Rights
By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
North Korea is willing to discuss ways of improving human right conditions in the country with the international community, a member of the European Parliament, said Wednesday.
``We made it clear that human rights dialogue (between North Korea and the European Union) should start again,'' Hubert Pirker, head of the European Parliament's Delegation for Relations with the Korean Peninsula, told reporters in Seoul after returning from a trip to the communist regime.
He said North Koreans had often shown ``aggressive'' reactions when asked to improve their human rights conditions, citing their own interpretation of human rights conditions and standards.
This time, however, they were ``never aggressive, accepting what we were urging and mentioning they were ready to discuss it,'' Pirker said.
He also said the North is committed to implementing the February 13 agreement for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
``We really had an impression that they are willing to immediately shut down (the Yongbyon nuclear reactor),'' Pirker said. ``They promised to do so, so we can be optimistic.''
Pirker and two other members of the European Parliament, Glyn Ford and Istvan Szent-Ivanyi, arrived here Tuesday after visiting the North where they met with Choe Thae-bok, chairman of the North's Supreme People's Assembly, and ranking government officials.
Pirker said the top U.S. nuclear envoy's surprise visit to the North late last week appeared to have an influence on the regime's change in its attitude toward the nuclear problem.
During the visit, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, chief U.S. delegate at the six-party disarmament talks on Pyongyang's nuclear program, took a two-day trip to the North and met with his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan to discuss the denuclearization process agreed upon on February 13 in Beijing.
A group of nuclear inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) entered Pyongyang Tuesday to discuss the shutdown of the plutonium-producing Yongbyon reactor, an initial step under the February deal, which Hill expected to happen before July 13.
The landmark nuclear deal has not materialized as Pyongyang failed to meet the April 14 deadline for initial steps, citing a banking dispute involving $25 million once frozen in the U.S.-blacklisted Banco Delta Asia in Macau. The money was transferred last week to a North Korean account at a Russian bank.
Under the first phase of the February 13 pact, the North is required to shut down and seal the reactor and allow IAEA inspectors back into the country to verify the process. In return, the North will get 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil and other political concessions.
In the next phase, North Korea is obligated to make a complete declaration to the IAEA and other participating nations at the six-party talks about its nuclear programs before dismantling the reactor. In exchange, Pyongyang would receive economic assistance equivalent to another 950,000 tons of heavy oil.