N. Korea to assume rotational presidency of U.N. disarmament conference

By Choi Soo-hyang

SEOUL, Jan. 27 (Yonhap) -- North Korea will lead the United Nations' Conference on Disarmament in a rotational one-month presidency later this year, the world body has said.

North Korea is among six countries -- along with China, Colombia, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ecuador -- that will assume this year's chairmanship for four weeks each in alphabetical order.

This first session began Monday under China's presidency, with North Korea's turn set for May 30 to June 24.

The North's presidency is expected to stir controversy, especially as it has been ramping up tensions on the Korean Peninsula with a series of weapons tests since the start of the year.

On Thursday, the North fired two apparent short-range ballistic missiles toward the East Sea, marking its sixth such launch this month.

U.N. Watch, a Geneva-based independent monitoring group, denounced the announcement, saying member countries, including the United States, should walk out of the conference during the four-week period.

"This is a country that threatens to attack other U.N. member states with missiles, and that commits atrocities against its own people," Hillel Neuer, executive director of U.N. Watch, said. "North Korea's chairmanship will only undermine the integrity of both the disarmament framework and of the United Nations, and no country should support that."

The activist group plans to hold demonstrations featuring "victims of North Korean abuses" to protest the North's chairmanship.

Comprising 65 member states, the Conference on Disarmament is "the world's single multilateral forum for disarmament negotiations," according to the U.N. website.

When the North last assumed the conference's presidency in 2011, Canada boycotted the event, saying, "North Korea is simply not a credible chair of this U.N. body" as "a major proliferator of nuclear weapons."

scaaet@yna.co.kr
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