UN Security Council members want North Korea meeting
A majority of UN Security Council members expressed concern over situation in North Korea.
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - North Korea s rights violations threaten the stability of East Asia, a majority of UN Security Council members said Friday, requesting a meeting on calls to refer Pyongyang to face crimes against humanity charges.
North Korea s sole major ally China and Russia did not join in the request, sent in a letter to Chadian Ambassador Cherif Mahamat Zene, whose country holds the council s presidency for December.
Australia, Britain, Chile, France, Jordan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, South Korea, Rwanda and the United States said in the letter that they were "deeply concerned" by the situation in communist North Korea.
The 10 ambassadors pointed to the "scale and gravity of human rights violations" outlined in a UN commission of inquiry report released in February.
"These violations threaten to have a destabilizing impact on the region and the maintenance of international peace and security," they wrote in the letter obtained by AFP.
The year-long inquiry heard testimony from North Korean exiles and documented a vast network of harsh prison camps holding up to 120,000 people along with cases of torture, summary executions and rape.
Responsibility for these violations lies at the highest level of the secretive North Korean state, according to the inquiry led by Australian judge Michael Kirby, who said that the atrocities amounted to crimes against humanity.
The 10 ambassadors asked that a meeting be held "as early as possible in the month of December."
Other than China and Russia, council members Argentina, Chad and Nigeria also did not join the push for North Korea s rights record to be discussed.
The move came less than three weeks after a landmark resolution was adopted in a General Assembly committee condemning North Korean rights abuses and calling on the Security Council to consider referring Pyongyang to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
UN diplomats said it was likely that China, which has veto power at the council, would block any move to refer North Korea to the ICC.
Both Russia and China voted against the resolution in the General Assembly committee. The resolution was adopted by a vote of 111 to 19, with 55 abstentions.
The General Assembly is due to vote on the resolution again this month.
