South Korea and the United States met in Seoul on Monday to discuss ways to improve human rights conditions in North Korea and other pending issues, the foreign ministry said.
The North Korea human rights consultative meeting was attended by Kim Yong-hyon, director-general of the Korean Peninsula peace regime bureau, and Ambassador Robert King, Washington's special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, according to the ministry.
The meeting marked the second of its kind following their first gathering in Washington in early October.
Both sides reportedly discussed such issues as human rights violations for North Korean people, including its overseas workers and how to hold those violators accountable and expand access to outside information for its citizens.
They were also known to have exchanged their views on how to raise awareness of the dismal human rights situation in the North.
The North has been labeled one of the worst human rights violators in the world, but Pyongyang has denied such criticism, calling it a US-led attempt to topple its regime.
Human rights violations in the North have been receiving fresh attention recently, with calls growing for global cooperation to shed light on people suffering from the North's oppressive regime.
A resolution on the North's human rights issues will likely be put to a vote at a United Nations committee this week. On Wednesday, Tomas Ojea Quintana, the U.N.'s Special Rapporteur on North Korea, will visit South Korea for the first time since his inauguration in July. (Yonhap)
