The US at the UN on Thursday accused North Korean leader Kim Jong-un of using “repression and cruelty” and totalitarian rule to unlawfully develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
“We cannot have peace without human rights,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the UN Security Council, which met publicly to discuss the human rights situation in North Korea for the first time since 2017.
“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,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
North Korea has rejected accusations of abuses.
China called for a resumption of negotiations.
“The council should play a constructive role in resuming talk and easing tensions,” Chinese Deputy Ambassador to the UN Geng Shuang (耿爽) told the meeting, which was requested by the US, Albania and Japan.
“Pushing the council to consider the human rights situation in the DPRK will not only not help to ease, but escalate the situation,” Geng said.
Separately, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby was quoted by Kyodo News as saying that US President Joe Biden would be willing to meet with Kim “without preconditions” to discuss the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
“They have not responded positively to that offer, but it’s still on the table,” Kirby said in an interview. “We are willing to sit down and negotiate without preconditions.”
Additional reporting by staff writer
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