A top British Foreign Office official will visit North Korea in September, the first British minister to go to the secretive communist nation, the Foreign Office said Tuesday.
Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell said he would meet with a North Korean counterpart, Paek Nam Sun, and other senior figures, to discuss issues including North Korea’s nuclear programme and human rights.
”The UK genuinely wants to engage with North Korea,” Rammell said in a statement.
”I believe the time is right for a British minister to visit, as the North Koreans have for the first time agreed that they are willing to discuss with us the human rights
situation in North Korea.”
He said he would tell North Korean authorities about Britain’s ”deep concern” over their nuclear programme and share its ”full support for six-nation talks on the programme”.
”I will urge North Korea to remain committed to the agreed objectives of the talks process, namely the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula,” Rammell said.
”I will also convey the UK’s concern at the dreadful reports that we continue to hear about the human rights situation” in North Korea, he said.
”I want to get beyond the automatic denials.”
He said it was the first time North Korea had agreed to discuss human rights with a British delegation and that he would bring the Foreign Office’s chief human rights expert, Jon Benjamin.
Britain established diplomatic relations with North Korea in December 2000 and opened an embassy in Pyongyang in July 2001. – Sapa-AP