Pretoria – The Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Ebrahim Ebrahim, has returned from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), where he used the visit to share South Africa’s experience of denuclearisation.
He engaged the DPRK on opening up to the international community and also to go back to the Six Party Talks that are intended to end the nuclear programme through negotiations.
Ebrahim had visited the country last week in the context of the 15th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties.
Speaking to the media on Friday, he said he shared the great benefits that accrued to South Africa from its decision to dismantle its nuclear weapons in 1994. However, he says the DPRK had its own story to tell.
“They say they feel constantly threatened by the UN Security Council and South Korea and the only way to protect themselves was developing nuclear weapons,” said Ebrahim.
Ebrahim said he related South Africa’s experience of resolving conflict through negotiations and dialogue, and encouraged the DPRK to resume participation in the Six-Party Talks at the earliest opportunity.
The UNSC imposed sanctions resulting from the DPRK’s nuclear programme, which plays out on the on-going Korean Peninsula tension, has made the country isolated from the rest of the world.
Ebrahim held consultations with Vice Minister Kim Hyong Jun and paid courtesy calls on the Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun and the President of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly Kim Yong Nam.
As part of the programme arranged by the DPRK government, Ebrahim says he visited the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) at Panmunjom as well as various newly constructed social amenities in Pyongyang, showing the progress that the DPRK has made over the past few years.
Six Party Talks
Launched in 2003, the Six Party Talks are aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear program through negotiations involving China, the United States, North and South Korea, Japan, and Russia.
The disjointed process has been hindered over the years by North Korea's repeated missile tests and other provocations. Progress reached a stalemate when Pyongyang walked out of negotiations in 2009 and, a year later, revealed a vast new uranium enrichment facility to visiting US scientists.
International human rights system
Meanwhile, Ebrahim says South Africa is firmly committed to working towards the strengthening of the international human rights system, particularly through the democratic government’s principled position, which affirms the inextricability between economic, social and cultural rights on the one hand, and civil and political rights on the other.
South Africa, together with 14 other Member States of the UN, was elected to serve on the UN Human Rights Council (HRC).
South Africa has pledged to use its position within the Council to advance a rules-based, just and equitable human rights system that is dedicated to the respect for the promotion, protection and fulfilment of human rights, and to ensure that the UN human rights system affords maximum protection to victims of human rights violations.
South Africa’s term on the Geneva-based HRC begins in January 2014. - SAnews.gov.za
