South welcomes UNSC meeting on North's human rights

South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomed the first open meeting on North Korea's human rights by the United Nations Security Council in six years as an opportunity to raise awareness on the issue and its link to international security.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, center, speaks in a press briefing flanked by diplomats of nations participating in a statement condemning North Korea’s human rights abuses, including South Korean Ambassador to the UN Hwang Joon-kook, to her left, at the UN headquarters in New York on Thursday. The UN Security Council earlier Thursday convened an open meeting to discuss the human rights situation in Pyongyang for the first time in six years. [AP/YONHAP]

South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday welcomed the first open meeting on North Korea's human rights by the United Nations Security Council in six years as an opportunity to raise awareness on the issue and its link to international security.

The 15-member council headquartered in New York convened a meeting last Thursday, where many representatives condemned North Korea's human rights violations and abuses.

The meeting came upon the request of Japan, Albania and the United States and marked the first open meeting of the council on North Korea's human rights violations since 2017.

The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the meeting provided "an important opportunity to increase global awareness and create a new momentum in discussions on the serious human rights situation in North Korea."

It added that the South Korean government, as a stakeholder, attended this meeting "to inform the public of the serious human rights situation in North Korea and that the regime's human rights abuses are closely related to international peace and security," emphasizing that the Security Council should "take a holistic approach to discuss this issue."

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who chaired Thursday's meeting, said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's "repressive, totalitarian control of society — and the systemic, widespread denial of human rights and fundamental freedoms — ensures the regime can expend inordinate public resources developing its unlawful WMD [weapons of mass destruction] and ballistic missile programs, without public objection."

She continued, "This war machine — which stands in violation of multiple Security Council resolutions — is powered by repression and cruelty."

Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, briefed the Security Council and said that many of North Korea's "severe, widespread and long-standing" rights abuses "stem directly from, or support, the increasing militarization of the DPRK."

He referred to the North by the acronym for its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Türk said North Korea has never been more "painfully closed" to the outside world than it is today, mainly because of border closures due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In turn, China and Russia, both traditional allies of North Korea, opposed the Security Council meeting, claiming that the country's human rights issues don't pose a threat to international peace and security.

The Security Council took no specific action after the meeting.

Thomas-Greenfield in a press conference after the meeting read a statement on behalf of 52 countries, including South Korea, that called for greater awareness of the links between the North's human rights situation and international peace and security.

"The DPRK government's violations and abuses have been well-documented by credible accounts, including numerous UN experts — and have been condemned through many General Assembly resolutions adopted by consensus over the past years," the statement read, pointing to a continued "lack of accountability."

Such abuses include arbitrary killings, harsh and life-threatening prison conditions, the punishment of family members for offenses allegedly committed by an individual and near-total state control of expression through censorship and repression, it added.

The statement said that the human rights violations and abuses "are also inextricably linked with the DPRK's weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile advancements in violation of Security Council resolutions."

It added that the North's "repressive political climate allows the government to divert resources to weapons development" and comes at the expense of the welfare of its people who suffer from severe economic hardship and malnutrition.

North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Son-gyong last week denounced the U.S. plan to hold the UN meeting as being "despicable," saying it was "a violent infringement" upon his country's dignity and sovereignty.

President Yoon Suk Yeol, U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida explicitly called out the North's rights abuses in their trilateral summit at Camp David on Friday through their joint statement, "Spirit of Camp David."

They committed to "strengthening cooperation to promote respect for human rights in the DPRK and reaffirm a shared commitment to the immediate resolution of the issues of abductees, detainees, and unrepatriated prisoners of war."

Yoon in the joint press conference alongside Biden and Kishida in Maryland said, "As North Korea funds its nuclear and missile programs by exploiting labor and human rights, efforts to monitor and stem such activities will be redoubled."

Hwang Joon-kook, South Korean ambassador to the United Nations, speaks during an open meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the human rights situation in North Korea at the United Nations headquarters in New York Thursday. [AP/YONHAP]

BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]