Top US diplomat attacks North Korea on human rights and weapons

AMERICA’S SENIOR diplomat has criticised North Korea’s human rights record and reiterated a vow to strip the country of its nuclear programme, a day after Pyongyang warned Washington to “refrain from causing a stink” amid deadlocked nuclear negotiations.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken arrived in South Korea with defence secretary Lloyd Austin earlier on yesterday as part of a regional tour aimed at boosting America’s Asian alliances to better deal with growing challenges from China and North Korea.

“The authoritarian regime in North Korea continues to commit systematic and widespread abuses against its own people,” Mr Blinken said at the start of his meeting with South Korean foreign minister Chung Eui-yong.

“We must stand with people demanding their fundamental rights and freedoms and against those who repress them.”

Mr Blinken called North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes “a threat to the region and to the world”, and said Washington will work with South Korea, Japan and other allies to achieve the denuclearisation of North Korea.

When Mr Austin met his South Korean counterpart Suh Wook yesterday, he said their countries’ alliance “has never been more important”, given “the unprecedented challenges posed by” North Korea and China.

US-led diplomacy on North Korea’s nuclear programme has been in limbo since a February 2019 summit between then president Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un collapsed over disputes on US-led sanctions. Mr Kim has since threatened to enlarge his nuclear arsenal in protest over what he called US hostility. On Tuesday, Mr Kim’s sister Kim Yo Jong, a senior official in her own right, condemned the US over its regular military drills with South Korea, which North Korea sees as an invasion rehearsal.