Constructive dialog with N. Korea

Bill Rammell, Guardian News Service, Pyongyang

This week I became the first British government minister to visit North Korea. It is a country more cut off than any other, one that harbors nuclear ambitions, and one that, arguably, has the worst human rights record.

I went there because the regime had agreed to discuss human rights and the nuclear question, the two preconditions that had blocked previous ministerial visits. Whether and when to engage with a state such as Kim Jong-il's is a judgment progressive governments like ours constantly have to make.

We believe now is the right time to make this move. If we cannot convince North Korea to shift its position, then the future of the country, its people and the wider world will be much bleaker. I do not underestimate how difficult it will be, but we have to try.

On the nuclear issue we're rightly not acting on our own: China, Russia, the U.S., Japan and South Korea are also trying to engage through the six-party talks. The EU is pressing, too. We have to work at this together. Two years ago North Korea admitted it had been developing a highly enriched uranium program to develop nuclear capability, in contravention of its previous commitments not to do so.

If North Korea has nuclear weapons then others will feel compelled to replicate this capability, and the world will become more dangerous. I believe terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons are the biggest threat to our civilization.

The talks are aimed at getting North Korea to dismantle its nuclear capability. Last weekend I urged the North Korean government to commit to the next round of talks. I said that if it did renounce nuclear weapons, then the international community was prepared to respond with security guarantees and aid. I argued that North Korea could, and should, follow Libya's example.

The allegations of human rights abuses are shocking: forced labor camps, torture, and families murdered to test chemical gases. North Korean ministers admitted to me that they attach a much lower priority to human rights than we do. And they admitted the existence of "re-education through labor" camps.

I told my counterpart that we would far rather discuss our human rights disagreements with them than simply run condemnatory resolutions at the UN commission on human rights. But for such a dialogue to take place we need the UN special rapporteur for North Korea to be allowed access to the country. The government did not reject this out of hand. We agreed to meet again next week at the UN general assembly.

I regard this as modest progress, as is the fact that North Korea is discussing our concerns with us for the first time. In the past it has refused to do so. But we need more.

The country needs to commit itself to renouncing nuclear weapons; it needs to move towards respect for human rights. That is not western conceit on my part; rather, it stems from a fundamental belief in the universality of human rights.

Some will accuse us of double standards. We went to war with Iraq -- if that was justified, why not North Korea? I believe the two situations are different. For 12 years in Iraq we sought a diplomatic solution. We are now rightly seeking a diplomatic solution in North Korea. We want a just and peaceful resolution of our differences. The country must understand the strength of our concerns -- and that we are not alone in holding them. I do not know of any democratic government that is not concerned about North Korea.

We have to tackle the threat from North Korea. But given its agreement to talk -- albeit belatedly and hesitantly -- I believe we are right to engage constructively with the government. This is the start of a long process to pull it back from complete isolation. The strategy is right. It makes sense to act now.

The writer is a member of the British Parliament and a minister in the UK Foreign Office.