North Korea’s human rights situation no threat to international peace - Russian diplomat

UNITED NATIONS, December 11. /TASS/. North Korea’s human rights situation poses no threat to the international peace and security, and talks on this matter in the UN Security Council distract attention from the priority task of resuming the six-party talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear program, Russia’s deputy permanent envoy to the UN, Yevgeny Zagaynov, has said. Russia, Angola, Venezuela and China have voted against discussing the human rights situation in North Korea as part of the United Nations Security Council. Like a year ago, most member-states of the UNSC have called for considering this issue. The Russian diplomat said the issues concerning human rights in a country "do not fall within the competence of the Security Council and should be considered by the relevant bodies, first of all, the UN human rights council." Zagaynov said the discussion of irrelevant issues leads to "duplicating functions" of the Security Council thus making its work less efficient. He reminded that the priority task now is to resume the six-party talks suspended in 2009 which can solve "a range of issues linked to the situation on the Korean Peninsula." Read more