N. Korea hits back at S. Korea over human rights

(ATTN: CHANGES headline; UPDATES throughout with N. Korea's response)
GENEVA, March 3 (Yonhap) -- North Korea lambasted South Korea Tuesday over its
latest demand at a regular session of the U.N. Human Rights Council that the
communist neighbor address its abysmal human rights record.
In his keynote speech earlier in the day, South Korea's Vice Foreign Minister
Shin Kak-soo urged North Korea to "take necessary measures to improve its human
rights situation in full compliance with its obligations under international
human rights law and relevant treaties to which it is a party."
The North's envoy immediately fired back at Shin's comments.
"The impertinent remarks by the South's chief delegate on the DPRK's (North
Korea) human rights issue instigate confrontation and hatred," Choe Myong-nam, a
councilor at the North's diplomatic mission to Geneva said.
The remarks should be criticized in "the strongest tone" as they violate the
contents and spirit of the historic inter-Korean summit deals on reconciliation
in 2000 and 2007, he argued.
Choe added the South Korean government should be held responsible for all results
stemming from such an anti-North Korean campaign. He did not elaborate.
He called for the South to abolish its draconian National Security Law first if
it really cares about human rights.
South Korea's tone this year was similar to that of last year's session, held
shortly after the launch of the conservative government of President Lee
Myung-bak. North Korea reacted angrily a year ago as well.
Lee's administration broke from the relatively low-key approach taken by his two
liberal predecessors by co-sponsoring a U.N. resolution condemning Pyongyang's
human rights abuses, marking the first such action for a South Korean government.
lcd@yna.co.kr
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