US to support UN's NK resolution

By Yi Whan-woo

The United States will support a United Nations move to adopt a resolution against North Korea for its crimes against humanity, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday.

“We’ve supported the resolution that’s been drafted by the European Union (EU),” Robert King, the special envoy for North Korean human rights issues at the U.S. Department of State, told reporters at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in central Seoul. “The text that they’ve submitted is a very good text. We’ll continue to support that text and we’ll continue to vote for it when it is brought up for a vote in the Third Committee next week.”

King, who is on a three-day visit to South Korea through Thursday, referred to the draft resolution circulated by the EU and Japan on Oct. 9.

It calls for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to be prosecuted at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for human rights violations. Citing the U.N. Commission of Inquiry’s (COI) report on North Korea released in February, the draft resolution accused the reclusive state of running political prison camps where up to 120,000 people are thought to be detained.

According to a U.N. source, the Third Committee is anticipated to take a vote between Nov. 17 and 26 at the earliest to decide whether to adopt the resolution. It added the date “will likely be Nov. 18.”

The Third Committee refers to the U.N. General Assembly’s Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs Committee that deals with a range of global human rights issues.

King also said the U.S will remain unchanged its position in spite of Pyongyang’s propaganda to dissuade U.N. members from taking on its tyrannical regime.

“I think North Koreans are concerned because there has been a strong sense of support for the COI’s report, for the criticism North Korea has justly received for its human rights record,” King said.

“So I think North Korea is responding to that. And they have a reason to respond, because they’ve got a human rights record that needs serious improvement.

“We’ll continue to urge that they take steps to improve the conditions.”

In his visit to the foreign ministry, King met Hwang Joon-kook, the special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, to discuss the dire human rights situation in North Korea.

The U.S. envoy will attend the Fourth Chaillot Human Rights Forum hosted by the Korea Institute for National Unification, a think tank under the Ministry of Unification, in Seoul, Thursday.

Meanwhile, China, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and North Korea’s top ally, is anticipated to use its veto power to turn down any attempt to refer Kim to the ICC and ask for the draft of the resolution to be revised.

According to the source, the co-sponsors of the original draft are required to determine whether to accept any such revision.

If they decided to accept it, the committee members then will vote to adopt either the original draft or the revised version, the source said.

It also said that the committee can still vote to decide whether to choose the original version or the revised draft even if the co-sponsors deicide not to accept the revised draft.

Pyongyang has been attempting to improve its image recently.

Last week, the reclusive regime released its last two American detainees ― Kenneth Bae and Matthew Todd Miller ― who were detained for “offending” the country.

There is a slim chance of actually referring Kim to the ICC because resolutions passed by the U.N. General Assembly are not legally binding.