U.N. envoy hopes N. Korean human rights be woven into nuclear talks

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SEOUL, Jan. 15 (Yonhap) -- The U.N. special envoy on North Korean human rights
expressed hope Friday that the issue be integrated into international talks
primarily aimed at denuclearizing the communist state should they resume in
future.
U.N. Special Rapporteur Vitit Muntarbhorn also described human rights conditions
in North Korea as "extremely grave," saying the country's punishment against
those trying to flee or repatriated has toughened in recent years.
"The current situation is extremely grave, extremely grave," Muntarbhorn said in
a press conference in Seoul as he wrapped up his last visit to South Korea in his
six-year tenure in the post.
The Thai professor of international law, whose mandate ends in June this year,
said the issue deserves greater international attention and could even be
integrated into the stalled six-nation talks that mainly focused on North Korea's
atomic arms ambitions.
"My message is ... that the six-party talks, if they will resume, will obviously
lend themselves to constructively opening up a space also for human rights and
humanitarian discourse and action, even though we know the six-party talks are
not primarily about human rights," he said.
Muntarbhorn argued that "various human rights elements," including the issue of
Japanese abducted by North Korean agents in the past, have been introduced into
the talks before they stalled in December 2008.
The talks involve the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia. After
staying away from them for more than a year -- during which it conducted its
second nuclear test -- Pyongyang recently showed its willingness to rejoin them
without saying when.
Muntarbhorn, who has repeatedly been denied entry into North Korea, noted a
decline in the number of defections from North Korea in the past few years and
partly attributed it to harsher penalties.
"The example of people trying to leave and then being punished for trying to
leave or sent back and being punished more severely, this is a very worrying
state of affairs. That's actually got worse over the past couple of years," he
said.
"I would just note that around 2003 and 2004 there was slight lessening of the
punishment, and they introduced an adjustment to the law to introduce sort of
labor training instead of incarceration," Muntarbhorn said.
"However, that slight mitigation ... has been reversed, particularly, during the
past two years. So now we get reports of serious punishment, full imprisonment,
as well as families being persecuted on the basis of collective punishment," he
said.
A U.N. General Assembly committee in November blasted the human rights
conditions in North Korea, citing "torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment of punishment" along with public executions. Under a treaty forged in
1998, China is believed to repatriate North Korean defectors that its
authorities capture.
Muntarbhorn noted North Korea made adjustments in recent years to reflect the
idea of human rights in its legal system but they lack substance.
"There have been formal improvements, but in terms of substance, there have been
very serious transgressions and violations," he said.
During his visit to South Korea, Muntarbhorn visited South Korean facilities
accommodating newly arrived North Korean defectors, collecting first-hand
testimonies on the life in the North. He also met with Robert King, U.S. special
envoy who works on the same cause. He did not give details of his conversation
with King or on who would succeed the U.N. post.
King said Jan. 11 in Seoul that the situation in North Korea remains "appalling."
North Korea routinely denies the criticism, counterattacking by calling the U.S.
the worst violator.
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