At UN event, Japan, US press North Korea abduction issue

Bloomberg

The United Nations Security Council debated conflicts from Syria to Libya to Bosnia this week. Missing from the agenda: North Korea’s missile launches, explicitly prohibited by unanimous council resolutions.
With the US and its allies offering a muted response to Kim Jong-un’s latest violation of international resolutions, UN attention on North Korea came at a small side event on abduction cases.
Relatives of people held hostage by Pyongyang, including the father of Otto Warmbier, the American college student who died in 2017 following more than a year of captivity in North Korea, spoke in harsh and moving terms at an event co-sponsored by Japan, Australia, the US and the European Union.
“We use this term Chairman Kim, but he should really be called criminal Kim,” said Fred Warmbier. “We start by telling the truth.”
Even though ballistic missile testing is banned by council resolutions pushed by President Donald Trump’s former ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, the US has largely held back on highlighting the latest violations as Trump continues to seek a diplomatic deal.
European officials earlier this week suggested holding a meeting but the US decided to wait as it assesses the situation, diplomats said.
Yet Jonathan Cohen, an American envoy to the UN, used the Friday event as an opportunity to draw attention to North Korea’s human rights violations.
“We remain deeply concerned about the human rights issue and North Korea’s egregious human rights record,” Cohen, the US mission’s charge d’affairs said.
“The United States stands with those whose loved ones were abducted.”
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has asked Trump to discuss with Kim the fate of 12 Japanese citizens abducted in the late 1970s and early 1980s.