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Korea will join 50 other countries including the European Union, Japan and the United States in sponsoring a resolution on human rights abuses in North Korea on the agenda of the UN General Assembly this month, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said Tuesday. This is the first time South Korea has put its name to the draft resolution, having either absented itself or abstained from voting when the issue was laid before the UN. The exception was 2006, when it voted in favor.
The Foreign Ministry said the decision was based on the principle of treating human rights as a universal value that should be treated separately from all other issues. A senior ministry official said the government ¡°actively participated and listed itself as one of the sponsors to distinguish itself from the Roh Moo-hyun administration on the issue.¡± The resolution will be circulated on Tuesday and put to the vote in mid-November.
Similar resolutions have been put before the General Assembly every year since 2005; they were previously tabled in the UN Commission for Human Rights. South Korea¡¯s sole endorsement to date came right after the North¡¯s nuclear test.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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