UNITED NATIONS, December 23. /TASS/. Discussion of the situation with human rights in North Korea at the UN Security Council will scarcely help dialogue with Pyongyang, Russia's deputy ambassador to the UN, Yevgeny Zaiganov , said on Monday.
He believes that such discussions should be held at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
"Today's discussion will unlikely help promote dialogue with the authorities of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which have stated their readiness for it," Zaiganov said at the Security Council session.
He warned that the meeting might bring about the flagging of efficiency of the Security Council and other UN agencies.
"The Council is often criticized for messing up its priorities and we've given one more pretext for this criticism today," Zaiganov said.
"Compliance with human rights should be considered by the UN Human Rights Council, an agency that was set up specially for monitoring this type of problems and has the necessary powers and the appropriate expert assistance for this," he said.
Russia and China on Monday voted against putting up the problem of observance of human rights in North Korea on the Security Council's agenda but eleven of the fifteen permanent and nonpermanent member-states voted for it. Australia, Britain, France, Jordan, Lithuania, South Korea, and the U.S. were among them.
Two more countries, Nigeria and Chad, abstained from voting. Since the right to veto does not apply to procedural issues, the problem was put up for discussion.