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Pyongyang has rejected a request by Jay Lefkowitz, the U.S. envoy on North Korean human rights, to visit the industrial complex in the border town of Kaesong when he visits South Korea next week, the Unification Ministry said Thursday.
Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyoun said Seoul on July 28 applied to the Kaesong Industrial Complex Management Committee to invite Lefkowitz, who wanted to visit the industrial park next Wednesday during his stay in South Korea. ¡°But North Korea refused to accept even the application."
The North reportedly merely said the envoy¡¯s visit was ¡°inappropriate."
Lefkowitz has raised questions about wages and labor conditions of North Korean workers in the industrial complex, and stressed the need to link the six-party nuclear talks with North Korea's human rights situation. He applied to visit the Kaesong complex in June 2006 and received a letter of invitation from the North. But he postponed his visit indefinitely in the wake of the North's test-firing of long-range missiles.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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