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North Korea’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ri Su-yong addresses a senior-level session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva on Mar. 1. (AP/Yonhap News)

North Korea’s Minister of Foreign Affairs announced a boycott on Mar. 1 of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) discussions on the North’s human rights issue.

The move by minister Ri Su-yong appears to be a protest against the issue being raised at a time when international pressure for sanctions has already been growing since North Korea’s nuclear test in January.

“We shall no longer participate in international sessions singling out the human rights situation of the DPRK [North Korea] for mere political attack,” Yonhap News quoted Ri as saying in a speech before a senior-level session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva on Mar. 1.

Ri went on to say that the US and other countries were making an issue of North Korea’s human rights record because they had “no other choice in the face of [North Korea’s] powerful nuclear deterrent and military force.”

“It is none of our business if this so-called ‘resolution’ is sent for a vote, and we will never, ever be bound by it,” he added.

The UNHRC has adopted resolutions on North Korean human rights every year since 2003, while the UN General Assembly has adopted resolutions urging improvements to the country‘s human rights conditions since 2005.

Ri also claimed that “the only evidence for attacking North Korea is the testimony of defectors, and defectors are people they have paid US$5,000 or more per person to kidnap or abduct and carry off.”

“The money to do that is funded by the US’s North Korea Human Rights Act and from Japanese and South Korean authorities,” he continued.

Ri also decided not to attend a disarmament conference in Geneva, which he attended last year.

In response to Ri’s claims, South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Yun Byung-se criticized the “inhumane” human rights conditions in North Korea and called for faithful execution of the UNSC sanctions in a keynote speech on Mar. 2, the third day of the UNHRC senior-level session.

By Park Byong-su, senior staff writer

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