North Korea, under fire for its own nuclear programme, took the helm of the Conference on Disarmament for the first time on Thursday to a chorus of protests and called for the elimination of nuclear weapons. The ascension of the secretive and Stalinist state to the monthly rotating presidency of the 65-member United Nations-backed talks got the cold shoulder from other countries and drew criticism from human rights groups and dissidents.
Canada did not attend the session, having promised to boycott the chairmanship of what it called a "major proliferator of nuclear weapons". "Allowing an international outlaw to oversee international arms control efforts is just plain wrong," Hillel Neuer, director of the Geneva-based group UN Watch said in a statement.
So Se Pyong, North Korean's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, did not refer to the controversy as he chaired the talks, attended by all other delegations including South Korea and the United States. The mercurial North conducted its second nuclear test in 2009, triggering UN sanctions that cut off a lucrative arms trade, further squeezing its moribund economy.
Human rights groups held a protest outside the UN in Geneva on Tuesday, displaying what they said were drawings of North Korean priison camps made by survivors. Anti-Pyongyang activists have voiced outrage at its role in the sole multilateral disarmament negotiating forum.
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