UNITED NATIONS: North Korea could face its strongest condemnation to date of its human rights record when the United Nations votes Thursday on a draft resolution deploring widespread abuses in the deeply reclusive country.
European and Japanese diplomats who drafted the measure say they are hoping to garner more votes than last year in the General Assembly, which has condemned Pyongyang's rights record every year since 2005 -- but to little avail.
This year's measure, co-sponsored by more than 50 countries, condemns "long-standing and ongoing systematic, widespread and gross violations of human rights" in North Korea.
For the second consecutive year, it encourages the Security Council to consider referring Pyongyang to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.
Such a move however would likely be blocked by Pyongyang's sole major ally China, which has veto power in the council.
The draft resolution demands that a vast network of prison camps in North Korea thought to be holding 100,000 inmates living in appalling conditions be shut down.
The vote at the General Assembly's committee on humanitarian issues follows reports that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon planned this week to visit Pyongyang for talks with leader Kim Jong-Un.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported Monday that Ban, a South Korean, would be making the first visit by a UN secretary-general to North Korea in more than 20 years, but the UN said the following day that no such trip was planned in the immediate future.
"At present, bilateral relations between the United Nations and the DPRK are not good," said North Korea's Ambassador-at-large Ri Hung Sik.
The United Nations should stop presenting "such unfair measures" as the resolution condemning human rights, he told a news conference in New York earlier this week.
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