UN Chief ‘Will not travel to North Korea’

Seoul-based analysts, speaking on the cancellation of Ban’s trip in May, said that the North Korean authorities might have done so because they believed that the chief would favour viewpoints of Washington and Seoul.

Nonetheless, Ri said North Korea “attaches great importance to dialogue on human rights”.

South Korean television network YTN reported Ri denied reports that Pyongyang was deploying a North Korean slave labor force overseas in order to earn much needed foreign currency for the regime.

“The secretary-general will not travel to North Korea next week”, Xinhua quoted the spokesman as saying in an emailed message on Tuesday.

“The secretary-general will not be traveling to [North Korea] next week”, the spokesperson insisted. “From there, he will go directly to Paris to attend the 2015 COP21”.

The planned trip comes six months after Pyongyang at the last minute canceled an invitation for Ban to visit an inter-Korean factory park in the North Korean city of Kaesong. Only two United Nations Secretaries-General have visited North Korea – Kurt Waldheim in 1979 and Boutros Boutros-Ghali in 1993.

Under global sanctions over nuclear and missile ambitions, North Korea has promoted tourism as a source of earning much-needed hard currency since Kim took power in late 2011. China is North Korea’s sole major ally and a key go-between in its role as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

Ri claimed allegations that North Korea commits human rights abuses are based on “all sorts of false and distorted data” from defectors and criminal fugitives, and the result of a “U.S. hostile policy” meant to bring down the government using “strong arm military pressure” and false attacks on its human rights record.

On Monday, Marzuki Darusman, the United Nations special rapporteur on North Korea’s human rights situation, will make a five-day visit to Seoul, according to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

South Korea’s foreign ministry could not confirm the Yonhap report.