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South Korea criticizes North's record on human rights at UN

South Korea's new conservative government is already making good on its promise to take a tougher line on North Korea by calling on Pyongyang to improve its widely criticized human rights policies.

The remark was just a single sentence in a speech by a South Korean diplomat at a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday. But it represented a major change after a decade in which South Korea largely refrained from criticism of its neighbor.

The South Korean government "calls upon the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to take appropriate measures to address the international community's concern that the human rights situation ... has not improved," Park In-kook, Seoul's deputy foreign minister in charge of international organizations and global issues, said in the speech.

North Korea struck back the next day, saying Pyongyang had "strong doubt" about whether the South remained committed to agreements between the two Koreas.

"South Korea must be held responsible for all the consequences arising out of these irresponsible remarks, which will have negative repercussions on the inter-Korean relations," said Choe Myung-nam, a counselor at the North's diplomatic mission in Geneva.

The statement in Geneva was welcomed by human rights observers.

Kay Seok, Seoul-based researcher for Human Rights Watch, praised the new government's stance and said she hoped it would continue to press the North for change.
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