Seoul will for the first time send senior officials to an international conference on North Korean human rights, the government said Monday. “Human Rights Ambassador Park Kyung-seo and Korean Ambassador to Norway Kim Young-seok will attend the seventh international conference on North Korean human rights and refugees in Norway from May 9-11,” a government official said. Park will explain South Korea’s position on human rights in the North in a 20-minute speech.

The Citizen's Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, a co-organizer of the conference along with Norwegian group Rafto Human Rights House, has organized six conferences on the issue with various international groups since 1999. South Korean officials have never so far attended such events for fear of provoking Pyongyang.

A government official says the nature of the conference has changed. “It used to be a venue to publicize human rights abuses in the North without producing substantial results,” the Foreign Ministry official said. “But the upcoming conference will discuss practical approaches to improving the human rights situation in the North.”

But that does not mean Seoul will change a strategy of “quiet diplomacy” which critics say amounts to total silence. The human rights envoy said, “I will explain that Seoul is interested in North Korean human rights issues, too, but has a different way of responding to them.” Park added “only the concerned parties themselves can resolve the matter” of human rights in their countries. “I will emphasize the point that we need to create an environment where North Korea itself can address its human rights issues.”

The envoy conceded that North Korea has a poor human rights environment, “but we cannot solve the matter just by aggressively criticizing the North.” “The biggest human rights issue in the North is making it feed its people,” he added.

(englishnews@chosun.com )