U.S. UN REP. POWER MAKES REMARKS ON NORTH KOREA

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 
Samantha Power
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations 
New York, NY
December 22, 2014

AS DELIVERED

Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you Assistant Secretary-General Simonovic and Assistant Secretary-General Zerihoun, for your informative and appropriately bleak briefings; and for the ongoing attention that your respective teams give to the situation in the DPRK, in spite of persistent obstacles put up by the North Korean government.

Today’s meeting reflects the growing consensus among Council members and UN Member States that the widespread and systematic human rights violations being committed by the North Korean government are not only deplorable in their own right, but also pose a threat to international peace and security.

A major impetus for the Security Council taking up this issue was the comprehensive report issued in February 2014 by the UN Human Rights Council Commission of Inquiry. The Commission of Inquiry conducted more than 200 confidential interviews with victims, eyewitnesses, and former officials, and held public hearings in which more than 80 witnesses gave testimony. Witness accounts were corroborated by other forms of evidence, such as satellite imagery confirming the locations of prison camps.

North Korea denied the Commission access to the country, consistent with its policy of routinely denying access to independent human rights and humanitarian groups, including the Red Cross and UN special rapporteurs. And despite repeated requests, the DPRK refused to cooperate with the inquiry.

The main finding of the Commission’s thorough and objective report is that “systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations have been and are being committed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.” The Commission found that the evidence it gathered provided reasonable grounds to determine that, “crimes against humanity have been committed in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, pursuant to policies established at the highest level of the State.”

If you have not watched any of the hours of victims’ testimony, or read from the hundreds of pages of transcripts from the Commission’s public hearings, I urge you to do so. They show North Korea for what it is: a living nightmare.

A former prisoner of Prison Camp 15, Kim Young-soon, said she and other prisoners were so famished they picked kernels of corn from the dung of cattle to eat. She said, “If there was a day that we were able to have mouse, that was a special diet for us. We had to eat everything alive, every type of meat we could find. Everything that flew, that crawled on the ground, any grass that grew in the field.”

Ahn Myong Chul, a former guard at Prison Camp 22, spoke of guards routinely raping prisoners. In one case in which a victim became pregnant and gave birth, the former guard reported that prison officials cooked her baby and fed it to their dogs. This sounds unbelievable and unthinkable; yet this is what a former guard told the Commission of Inquiry at a public hearing. His account fits a pattern across witnesses’ testimonies of sadistic punishments meted out to prisoners whose “crime” was being raped by officials.

The Commission estimates that between 80 and 120 thousand people are being held in prison camps like the ones where so many of these crimes occurred.

Many who testified before the Commission were tortured as punishment for trying to flee North Korea. One man who was sent back to the DPRK from China described being held in prison cells that were only around 50 centimeters high, just over a foot and a half. He said the guards told him that because the prisoners were animals, they would have to crawl like animals. A woman from the city of Musan told how her brother was caught after fleeing to China. When he was returned, North Korean security officials bound his hands and chained him to the back of a truck before dragging him roughly 45 kilometers, driving three loops around the city so everyone could see, his sister testified. “When he fell down, they kept on driving,” she said.

Nor are the horrors limited to prison camps or those who try to flee. The Commission found “an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as well as of the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, information and association” in the DPRK.

On December 18th, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution expressing grave concern at the Commission’s findings, and roundly condemning the DPRK’s “widespread and gross violations of human rights.” One hundred and sixteen member States voted in favor, 20 against, and 53 abstained. The resolution also encouraged the Security Council to “take appropriate action to ensure accountability, including through consideration of referral of the situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the International Criminal Court and consideration of the scope for effective targeted sanctions against those who appear to be most responsible.”

The Security Council should demand the DPRK change its atrocious practices, which demonstrate a fundamental disregard for human rights and constitute a threat to international peace and security.

We should take this on for three reasons. First, the DPRK’s response to the Commission of Inquiry’s report – and even to the prospect of today’s session – shows that it is sensitive to criticism of its human rights record. Just look at all the different strategies North Korea has tried in the past several months to distract attention from the report, to delegitimize its findings, and to avoid scrutiny of its human rights record.

The DPRK ramped up its propaganda machine, publishing its own sham report on its human rights record, and claiming “the world’s most advantageous human rights system.” The DPRK tried to smear the reputations of hundreds of people who were brave enough to speak out about the heinous abuses they suffered, calling them “human scum bereft of even an iota of conscience.” This was in a statement North Korea sent to the Security Council today. And North Korea launched slurs against the Commission’s distinguished chairman, Justice Kirby.

The DPRK deployed threats, saying any effort to hold it more accountable for its atrocities would be met with “catastrophic consequences.”

All of North Korea’s responses – the threats, the smears, the cynical diversions – show that the government feels the need to defend its abysmal human rights record. And that is precisely why our attention is so important.

The second argument for exerting additional pressure is that when regimes warn of deadly reprisals against countries that condemn their atrocities, as the North Koreans have done, that is precisely the moment when we need stand up and not back down. Dictators who see threats are an effective tool for silencing the international community tend to be emboldened and not placated. And that holds true not only for the North Korean regime, but for human rights violators around the world who are watching how the Security Council responds to the DPRK’s threats.

The DPRK is already shockingly cavalier about dishing out threats of staging nuclear attacks, and has routinely flouted the prohibitions on proliferation imposed by the Security Council. In July, North Korea’s military threatened to launch nuclear weapons at the White House and the Pentagon, and in March 2013, it threatened to launch a pre-emptive strike on the United States, saying, “everything will be reduced to ashes and flames.”

In the most recent example of its recklessness, the DPRK carried out a significant cyber-attack on the United States in response to a Hollywood comedy portraying a farcical assassination plot. The attack destroyed systems and stole massive quantities of personal and commercial data from Sony Pictures Entertainment – not only damaging a private sector entity, but also affecting countless Americans who work for the company. The attackers also threatened Sony’s employees, actors in the film, movie theaters, and even people who dared to go to the theaters showing the movie, warning them to “Remember the 11th of September.” Not content with denying freedom of expression to its own people, the North Korean regime now seems intent on suppressing the exercise of this fundamental freedom in our nation.

North Korea also threatened the United States with “serious consequences” if our country did not conduct a joint investigation with the DPRK – into an attack that they carried out. This is absurd. Yet it is exactly the kind of behavior we have come to expect from a regime that threatened to take “merciless countermeasures” against the U.S. over a Hollywood comedy, and has no qualms about holding tens of thousands of people in harrowing gulags. We cannot give in to threats or intimidation of any kind.

Third, the international community does not need to choose between focusing on North Korea’s proliferation of nuclear weapons and focusing on its widespread and ongoing abuses against its own people. That is a false choice. We must do both. As we have seen throughout history, the way countries treat their own citizens – particularly those countries that systematically commit atrocities against their own people – tends to align closely with the way they treat other countries and the norms of our shared international system.

On November 23, a week after the UN’s Third Committee adopted its DPRK resolution, North Korea’s military said “all those involved in its adoption deserve a severe punishment” and warned, again, of “catastrophic consequences.” Now here, presumably, “all” would imply the more than 100 Member States who voted for the resolution. The military also that said if Japan “continued behaving as now, it will disappear from the world map.”

When a country threatens nuclear annihilation because it receives criticism of how it treats its own people, can there be any doubt regarding the connection between North Korea’s human rights record and international peace and security?

North Korea did not want us to meet today, and vociferously opposed the country’s human rights situation being added to the Security Council’s agenda. If the DPRK wants to be taken off the Security Council’s agenda, it can start by following the Commission of Inquiry’s recommendations to: acknowledge the systematic violations it continues to commit; immediately dismantle political prison camps and release all political prisoners; allow free and unfettered access by independent human rights observers; and hold accountable those most responsible for its systematic violations.

Knowing the utter improbability of North Korea making those and a long list of other necessary changes, it is incumbent on the Security Council to consider the Commission of Inquiry’s recommendation that the situation in North Korea be referred to the International Criminal Court and to consider other appropriate action on accountability – as 116 Member States have urged the Council to do.

In the meantime, the United States will support the efforts of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to establish a field-based office to continue documenting the DPRK’s human rights violations, as mandated by the Human Rights Council, as well as support the work of the Special Rapporteur. Both should brief the Council on new developments in future sessions on this issue.

It is also crucial that all of DPRK’s neighbors abide by the principle of non-refoulement, given the horrific abuses to which North Koreans are subjected to upon return, and provide unfettered access to the UNHCR in their countries. The United States will continue to welcome North Korean refugees to our country, and help provide assistance to North Korean asylum seekers in other countries.

It is reasonable to debate the most effective strategy to end the nightmare of North Korea’s human rights crisis. What is unconscionable in the face of these widespread abuses – and dangerous, given the threat that the situation in the DPRK poses to international peace and security – is to stay silent. Silence will not make the North Korean government end its abuses. Silence will not make the international community safer.

Today, we have broken the Council’s silence. We have begun to shine a light, and what it has revealed is terrifying. We must continue to shine that light, for as long as these abuses persist. Today’s session is another important step – but far from the last – towards accountability for the crimes being perpetrated against the people of North Korea. The Council must come back to speak regularly about the DPRK’s human rights situation – and what we can do to change it – for as long as the crimes that brought us here today persist. That is the absolute minimum we can and must do.

Thank you, Mr. President.

SECRETARY KERRY'S PRESS AVAILABILITY IN BEIJING, CHINA

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Solo Press Availability in Beijing, China
Press Availability
John Kerry
Secretary of State
JW Marriott Hotel
Beijing, China
February 14, 2014

SECRETARY KERRY: I know you all have been waiting a while, so my apologies. Our meetings ran a little longer than anticipated, and you’re patient, and I appreciate it very, very much.

It’s a pleasure for me to be back in Beijing, and particularly tonight with the Festival of the Lanterns and the start of the Lunar New Year, the Year of the Horse. And the Lunar New Year always, here and in other parts of this region, is an exciting time, a time of renewal, as it is for everybody, and a profound sense of optimism, I think, as we heard from the leadership throughout the day.

It’s an auspicious time to visit, and I want to thank all of the leadership of China – the president – President Xi Jinping and the premier, the state councilor, and the foreign minister – for their generous welcome, and for the in-depth and serious conversations that we had today on almost every subject of concern between the United States and China and the region.

I want to emphasize that President Obama and the United States take our role in the Asia Pacific very seriously. As President Obama and I have made clear on any number of occasions, we are committed to strengthening our enduring presence in this dynamic region, and to working with our partners in order to promote long term stability and prosperity. And I think everybody knows that the United States has been a Pacific nation for almost all of our history, throughout the 1800s, 1900s, and now into the 21st century. And our partnership with China is critical to our effort to provide for that stability and prosperity.

As the world’s two largest economies, we really have a particular role, a particular set of responsibilities that we can exercise, and together, if we exercise them in concert with one another, we have an opportunity to make real progress, and also to send important signals to people throughout the world – people who are watching China rise and wonder where it is headed, and people who watch the United States continue to exercise its leadership and to press for the expression of our values and our interests to be met according to the rule of law and according to the highest international standards.

Our partnership with China we view as one of great potential. It is one that is continuing to be defined, and we are convinced that both regional and global challenges that we face, China and the United States, when they can act together in concert with common purpose, have the opportunity to be able to make a significant difference.

As President Obama and President Xi made clear at Sunnylands last year, they are committed to building an historic bilateral relationship based on two most critical elements: one, practical cooperation, and two, constructive management of differences – and there are differences, and we were honest about that today.

In our meetings, we had an opportunity to discuss particularly some key issues, and I’ll just review those very quickly for you. First of all, we spoke about the commitment that the United States and China share to achieve a denuclearized North Korea, as well as the special role that China can play in helping to make that goal a reality. We agree, along with our international partners, that the DPRK must take meaningful, concrete, and irreversible steps towards verifiable denuclearization, and it needs to begin now. I’m pleased that at every level in all of our conversations today, China could not have more forcefully reiterated its commitment to that goal, its interests in achieving that goal, and its concerns about the risks of not achieving that goal – in terms of what it might mean, in terms of stability on the Peninsula, as well as the potential for an arms race in the region. I encourage the Chinese to use every tool at their disposal, all of the means of persuasion that they have, building on the depths of their long and historic and cultural and common history that has brought them together – though while not allies, they have a relationship.

We also discussed – excuse me – we also discussed climate change and clean energy. And this is another area where we are already cooperating closely and where we are looking for even more cooperation. The United States and China, unhappily, are the two largest emitters of greenhouse gasses on the planet, and they contribute together as a result to the fact of climate change. Together, the United States and China account for some 40 percent of the carbon pollution that is released into the atmosphere. It is imperative for us to work together in order to ensure that an ambitious international climate agreement that the united – the UN Climate Summit in 2015 can be achieved. So we talked about that today.

On my last visit to Beijing, last April, we took an important step forward when we came together to launch the climate change working group. That is working, and they are engaged, but there’s a lot more work to do as the science that has been pouring in over the course of the last year tells us every single day, and as the facts on the ground with droughts, fires, and disasters, and acidification of the ocean, and other things happening at an increased pace, it is more urgent that we join together to respond to this problem.

So we need to implement the initiatives that the climate change working group has already identified, but we need to do more than that. We need to see if working together we could identify any further steps that we may be able to take, specifically with respect to arrival at meaningful targets with respect to the 2015 climate change conference that will take place in Paris in December of next year.

In addition, it’s also important that we make good on the promise that was made at Sunnylands last year when our presidents agreed to face down the hydrofluorocarbons – or HFCs, as they’re called. And HFCs are some of the most potent climate pollutants in the world. And if we follow through on all of the fronts that are available to us, we have an opportunity to make real progress in the fight against climate change.

In addition, today, we spoke about our shared interest in preventing Iran from ever acquiring a nuclear weapon. Our close cooperation, which we agreed will absolutely continue, will go a long way towards helping to make the P5+1 negotiations continue. There are many areas where we are able to cooperate closely. But it’s equally important for us to acknowledge areas where our governments disagree and where, most importantly, we need to take steps in order to manage those disagreements appropriately and constructively.

In that spirit today, we did discuss – had a frank discussion about some human rights challenges and the role of rule of law and the free flow of information in a robust, civil society; the challenges of the cyber world that we live in today; the economic challenges; and I emphasized that respect for human rights and for the exchange of information in a free manner contributes to the strength of a society in a country.

Recent arrests of peaceful advocates for reform run counter, in our judgment, to all of our best interests and the ability to make long term progress. I emphasized today that the United States remains concerned about these situations here in China, human rights situations – especially with respect to the Tibetan and the Uighur areas.

I also expressed our concern about the need to try to establish a calmer, more rule-of-law-based, less confrontational regime with respect to the South China Sea, and the issues with respect to both the South China Sea and the East China Sea. And this includes the question of how an ADIZ might or might not come about. We certainly expressed the view that it’s important for us to cooperate on these kinds of things, to have notice, to work through these things, and to try to do them in a way that can achieve a common understanding of the direction that we’re moving in, and hopefully a common acceptance of the steps that are or are not being taken. Certainly, with respect to the South China Sea, it’s important to resolve these differences in a peaceful, non-confrontational way that honors the law of the sea and honors the rule of law itself. And we encourage steps by everybody – not just China, by all parties – to avoid any kind of provocation or confrontation and to work through the legal tools available.

I think it’s important that the same approach of rule of law clarify whatever claims are being made by any party. That’s why we have – the United States, though not yet ratified, lives by and will follow the rules of the Law of the Sea, and we hope others and everybody else chooses to do so, too.

I also shared our interests in China and ASEAN making rapid strides in negotiating the code of conduct, and I think China’s ready and wanting to try to achieve that goal. That would help reduce tensions that stem from the territorial and maritime disputes, and in the meantime, it’s very important that everybody build crisis management tools and refrain from coercive or unilateral measures to assert whatever claims any country in the region may have.

Finally, on Syria, which we also discussed, I stressed the importance of China’s support in the United Nations for the Security Council efforts to help deal with the planet’s greatest humanitarian crisis today. The Syrian people have gone without humanitarian aid for so long that there are people starving to death – children, women. There have been horrendously graphic pictures of both torture and starvation that have indicated the craven depravity that is the hallmark of what is happening in Syria today. And the Syrian people deserve to have the international community stand up and fight for them, since they are not in a position, most of them, to be able to fight for themselves. It is important for the Security Council to speak to this. And I underscored today that no country should stand in the way of increased humanitarian access for the Syrian people, and we are going to continue to press for that.

Our cooperation, frankly, on issues of enormous importance in the world should not go unnoticed. China and the United States are cooperating on big-ticket items. We’ve worked together in the P5+1 on Iran. We’ve worked together on Afghanistan. We have worked together on Syria. We are working together on other issues like South Sudan and the prevention of violence there. And we appreciate enormously the Chinese efforts with respect to those kinds of initiatives. Not many people know that that kind of cooperative effort is underway.

I think today we agreed that it is important for us, as the two most powerful economies in the world, to look for the opportunities to be able to work together and try to cooperate, to try to manage the differences, but most importantly to engage in a practical cooperation that can have an influence on other countries in the world that wonder where these two great powers are headed. And I found today constructive. I thought the tone was excellent. It was frank. There were some differences, needless to say, but they were managed and handled exactly as they should be, in an appropriate exchange and an appropriate kind of discussion. And my hope is that today, particularly with respect to the climate that we discussed, where were are going to work again some more tonight, and even tomorrow morning I have a meeting and I hope out of that will come further definition to the steps that we want to take, and also with respect to North Korea, where we both had thoughts about how to proceed, and I think we both are taking them under advisement. And I will certainly report back to President Obama on what may or may not prove to provide a road ahead. And that is certainly our hope.

So I look forward to the rest of my meetings and to continuing our work with our Chinese partners on these many issues. And I look forward to taking some questions.

MS. PSAKI: The first question will be from Arshad Mohammed of Reuters.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, did you make any tangible headway in getting specific assurances from China that they would actually pursue their maritime claims in line with international law or that they would actually submit them to some kind of international or diplomatic process, such as actually starting negotiations on an ASEAN code of conduct? Or did you not actually get assurances on any of those?

And you’ve made reference to discussing the importance of cooperating on declaring ADIZ. Did you specifically warn China against unilaterally establishing a second ADIZ in the South China Sea? And did you specifically say, as a senior NSC official recently said, that if China did so it – the United States could alter its military posture in the region?

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, I’m not going to go into all of the specifics of the conversation, except to say that yes, we did discuss this specific road ahead with respect to resolving these claims in the South China Sea. And the Chinese have made clear that they believe they need to be resolved in a peaceful and legal manner, and that they need to be resolved according to international law and that process.

And I think they believe they have a strong claim, a claim based on history and based on fact. They’re prepared to submit it, and – but I think they complained about some of the provocations that they feel others are engaged in. And that is why I’ve said all parties need to refrain from that. Particularly with respect to some of the islands and shoals, they feel there have been very specific actions taken in order to sort of push the issue of sovereignty on the sea itself or by creating some construction or other kinds of things.

So the bottom line is there was a very specific statement with respect to the importance of rule of law in resolving this and the importance of legal standards and precedent and history being taken into account to appropriately make judgments about it.

With respect to the ADIZ, we have, indeed, made clear our feelings about any sort of unilateral announcements. And I reiterated that again today. And I think hopefully that whatever falls in the future will be done in an open, transparent, accountable way that is inclusive of those who may or may not be concerned about that kind of action. But we’ve made it very clear that a unilateral, unannounced, unprocessed initiative like that can be very challenging to certain people in the region and therefore to regional stability. And we urge our friends in China to adhere to the highest standards of notice, engagement, involvement, information sharing, in order to reduce any possibilities of misinterpretation in those kinds of things.

MS. PSAKI: The next question will be from Paul Richter.

QUESTION: Just to make clear on the DPRK issue, you said that the Chinese voiced their commitment to taking action on this. Did you receive a specific commitment from China to do more to try to prevent North Korean provocations?

On a second issue, President Obama last Friday said that, because of his frustration about the lack of a solution to the Syrian war, that the Administration is reviewing, once again, the options to do more on Syria. I wonder if you could address that. Is the Administration thinking about doing more than providing humanitarian aid and perhaps non-lethal assistance? Have options been presented to senior officials?

SECRETARY KERRY: What was the first part of the question?

QUESTION: About the DPRK.

SECRETARY KERRY: Yeah.

QUESTION: Did you receive a specific --

SECRETARY KERRY: Yeah. On the DPRK, China could not have been more emphatic or made it more clear that they will not allow a nuclear program over the long run, that they believe deeply in denuclearization, that denuclearization must occur, that they are committed to doing their part to help make it happen, and that they also will not allow instability and war to break out in the region. They believe it has to be done in a political negotiation and through diplomacy. That is their preference.

But they made it very clear that if the North doesn’t comply and come to the table and be serious about talks and stop its program and live up to an agreed-upon set of standards with respect to the current activities that are threatening the people, that they’re prepared to take additional steps in order to make sure that their policy is implemented. And when I say “their policy,” their shared policy together with the other participants of the Six Party group and those in the region. And there is a very firm commitment to achieving that.

Now what we’re talking about are some of the specifics of how you do that. And they put some ideas on the table, and we put some ideas on the table. And both of us are taking those under evaluation. I will report back to the President those things that the Chinese thought might be helpful, and they are taking under advisement – I shared with each leader at each level our thoughts about what must be done and what we need in order to proceed forward. And they have agreed to take that under advisement. And we will continue this dialogue in the days ahead in a very serious way with a great sense of the urgency of time and purpose.

With respect to Syria, the President is always considering the options. This is not a one-time thing. But I think it is fair to say that because of the increase of the humanitarian crisis, because of the unwillingness of the Assad regime to engage fully in Geneva I talks – which is the sole purpose of Geneva II, to implement Geneva I. And Geneva I makes it clear that you have to have a transition government with full executive authority arrived at by mutual consent. Those are the terms.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has stood up beside me in Moscow, in Paris, in Geneva, and elsewhere – not beside me in Geneva, but said in Geneva that is the purpose of our doing Geneva II. There is no question about what this is about. And any efforts to try to be revisionists or walk back or step away from that, frankly, is not keeping word or keeping faith with the words that have been spoken and the intent of this conference.

So it is clear that the crisis of Syria is growing, not diminishing. There’s been a 50 percent increase in the number of external refugees. There’s a 33 percent increase in the number of internally displaced people since last October, when the presidential statement was passed at the United Nations. Almost nothing positive with respect to those refugees or the internal displacement has happened. In fact – what am I saying? – it’s gotten worse, dramatically worse, since the UN issued a presidential statement, which was all that could be achieved because of the opposition of certain countries.

So now we’re back at the United Nations because the situation demands that the civilized world stand up and fight for those people who are the victims day to day of violence that comes from barrel bombs dropped from helicopters and from Scud missiles fired on innocent civilians and starvation and siege that is being laid to over 200,000, 250,000 people trapped in places where they can’t get food. This is grotesque. And the world needs to take note and figure out what the appropriate response is.

President Obama said at his press conference with President Hollande of France that he is deeply concerned about it and deeply concerned about the fact that at Geneva the talks are not producing the kind of discussion of transition government that they are supposed to. And so he is, indeed – he’s asked all of us to think about various options that may or may not exist. The answer to the question have they been presented, no, they have not. But that evaluation by necessity, given the circumstances, is taking place at this time. And when these options are right and when the President calls for it, there will undoubtedly be some discussion about them.

MS. PSAKI: Thank you, everyone.

SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you all very much. Thanks. Appreciate it.

U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT RECEIVES QUESTION ON CHINESE SHIP INTERDICTION

Korean War Photo.  Credit:  U.S. DOD.

FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
ROK Seizure of Chinese Ship

Taken Question

Office of the Spokesperson

Question: Does the State Department have any information related to the interdiction by the Republic of Korea of a Chinese-flagged ship, reportedly carrying graphite cylinders usable in missile programs supposedly from the DPRK, purported to be en route to Syria?

Answer: We refer you to the Government of the Republic of Korea for comment.

The United States will continue to work with the international community and our partners on the UN Security Council, including China, to enforce sanctions against the DPRK and to urge all countries to be vigilant in their dealings with North Korea.

U.S. ENVOY SPEAKS TO UN HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT ON NORTH KOREA

Map Credit:  CIA World Factbook.

FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT

UNGA Third Committee Interactive Dialogue With the Special
Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)
Press Statement
Robert R. King
Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues
Washington, DC
November 5, 2012


The United States appreciates the report by UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the DPRK, Marzuki Darusman, and finds it regrettable that the DPRK government continues to exclude him from visiting the country. We hope the DPRK will recognize the benefits of cooperating with Mr. Darusman, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and other thematic Special Rapporteurs.

The people of the DPRK continue to suffer from widespread human rights violations. The Special Rapporteur notes reports of the extensive use of political prison camps, poor prison conditions and prisoners being subjected to forced labor, and torture, and has called on the UN General Assembly and the international community to consider setting up a more detailed mechanism of inquiry. We look forward to future reporting on this topic by the Special Rapporteur.

The Special Rapporteur also notes severe restrictions on the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, and assembly, despite constitutional guarantees of these rights. The Special Rapporteur notes deep concerns about several articles in the Criminal Code that are either not in line with international standards or contain vague terms that allow for misinterpretation and abuse by the State.

The United States remains deeply concerned about the well-being of DPRK citizens. Improving conditions for the people in the DPRK requires an integrated and collaborative approach. We welcome the Special Rapporteur’s insights on constructive interventions and how to encourage non-traditional partners to take up the issue of human rights in the DPRK.

U.S. OFFICIAL REMARKS WITH JAPANESE MINISTER

FROM:  U.S. NAVY
The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell (DDG 85), right, conducts a replenishment at sea with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force Towada-class fast-combat support ship JS Hamana (AOE 424) during Pacific Bond 2012. With the two ships are the Hatakaze-class destroyer JS Shimakaze (DDG 172) and the Royal Australian Navy Anzac-class frigate HMAS Ballarat (FFH 155). Pacific Bond 2012 is a U.S. Navy, Royal Australian Navy, and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force maritime exercise intended to improve interoperability and further relations between the nations. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Declan Barnes (Released) 


FROM:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Remarks to the Media Prior to and After Their Meeting
Remarks
Robert R. King
Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues Japanese Minister for the Abduction Issue Jin Matsubara
Tokyo, Japan
June 8, 2012
MINISTER MATSUBARA (Interpreted from Japanese): As far as Japan's position on the abduction issue is concerned, as clearly stated by Prime Minister Noda in his responses to questions that were raised in Diet sessions, we take the position that no normalization of Japan's relations with North Korea (is possible) without the resolution of the abduction issue.
Furthermore,
we share the recognition that it is extremely difficult to provide any humanitarian assistance without resolution of the abduction issue. The other side of the point, though, is if we see progress on the abduction issue from them it allows us to be in a position to provide humanitarian aid.

At any rate, I believe that the issue of abductees by the DPRK is a very grave humanitarian issue and of human rights. I think it is a race against time because of the aging of the families and the abductees. Symbolically speaking, I believe that Japanese as a whole would really sense that the abduction issue has been resolved when they see a scene of the Yokotas embracing Megumi Yokota.

So I would again like to reiterate my welcome to you, Ambassador, and I would also like to request for your continued support in the resolution of this issue.

AMBASSADOR KING: Mr. Minister, as you know, the United States has been very supportive of Japanese efforts to see the return of these abductees. We will continue to follow that policy and are supportive of what you're doing in terms of seeing the enactment of these returns. Japan is a key partner to the United States, and with South Korea, as we seek to resolve the problems and difficulties in our relationship with North Korea, we want to make sure that we coordinate and cooperate with your government on our policy towards North Korea

G-8 FOREIGN MINISTERS CONDEMN NORTH KOREAN MISSILE LAUNCH

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
G8 Foreign Ministers Statement
Media Note Office of the Spokesperson Washington, DC
April 12, 2012
Following is the text of a statement released on behalf of the G8 Foreign Ministers:
Begin text:
We, the G-8 Foreign Ministers, condemn the launch by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), which is a violation of UN Security Council Resolutions 1695, 1718, and 1874. Sharing the view that the launch undermines regional peace and stability, we call on the DPRK to abstain from further launches using ballistic missile technology or other actions which aggravate the situation on the Korean Peninsula. We are ready to consider, with others, taking measures responding to all activities of the DPRK that violate UN Security Council Resolutions, and calling for appropriate response by the United Nations Security Council. We urge the DPRK to meet its international commitments including those under the 2005 Joint Statement of the Six-Party Talks; comply with its obligations under all relevant UN Security Council resolutions, in particular by abandoning all its nuclear weapons and its existing nuclear and ballistic missile programs in a complete, verifiable, and irreversible manner; cease its uranium enrichment activities, which violate UN Security Council Resolutions 1718 and 1874; and take concrete and irreversible steps toward denuclearization.