WASHINGTON - The United States will soon name a special envoy to deal with growing concerns over human rights in North Korea, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday.
Rice's remarks to a Senate committee came as a US senator and a refugee watchdog group both suggested that Washington was not doing enough to deal with an increasingly worrying situation in the insular Asian state.
"We've identified a special envoy for North Korean human rights. There should be an announcement of that very soon," the chief US diplomat said.
"I think it is a very important issue. We do need to shine more of spotlight on the human rights issues in North Korea," she said of the country whose nuclear weapons program has dominated headlines.
"And we're working with homeland security and with others about what we might be able to do on North Korean refugees."
Rice responded to a question by Republican Senator Sam Brownback, sponsor of the North Korean Human Rights Act passed last year, which provided for the appointment of a special US envoy.
Brownback and the group Refugees International both suggested the United States needed to put more pressure on China in particular not to repatriate refugees to North Korea where they faced persecution or even death.
The lawmaker said he was considering introducing legislation to slap economic sanctions on China if it did not halt the practice.
05/12/2005 20:04 GMT