envoy

Feb. 2 (Asia Today) — Elizabeth Salmon, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, began a five-day visit to South Korea on Monday, meeting vice minister-level officials under the Lee Jae-myung administration, a shift from ministerial-level meetings held during the previous government.

The visit, which runs from Feb. 2 to 6, marks Salmon’s third official trip to South Korea since assuming the post and her first since September 2023.

During earlier visits in 2022 and 2023, Salmon met with ministers and vice ministers from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Unification, discussing broad cooperation on improving human rights conditions in North Korea. This time, her meetings with the South Korean government are limited to vice minister-level officials, reflecting differing policy approaches between the former Yoon Suk Yeol administration and the current Lee government.

The Foreign Ministry said Salmon met Monday with Vice Foreign Minister Kim Jin-ah to discuss the current state of North Korean human rights.

Kim praised the rapporteur’s efforts to raise international awareness of human rights abuses in North Korea and expressed hope that her work would contribute to tangible improvements for North Korean citizens. She also commended Salmon for focusing her report to the 61st session of the UN Human Rights Council on the Universal Periodic Review process and urged continued engagement.

Salmon said she would explore technical assistance to help North Korea implement recommendations it accepted through the review process and support efforts to promote dialogue and engagement.

She is scheduled to meet Vice Unification Minister Kim Nam-joong on Wednesday, as well as officials from other government bodies including the Ministry of Justice, according to officials.

During her first official visit in 2022, Salmon met with then Foreign Minister Park Jin, then Vice Foreign Minister Lee Do-hoon, Ambassador for International Cooperation on North Korean Human Rights Lee Shin-hwa, and then Unification Minister Kwon Young-se. On her second visit in 2023, she also met with former peace negotiations chief Kim Gun and former Unification Minister Kim Young-ho.

During this visit, Salmon is also meeting with North Korean human rights groups and defector organizations to hear their assessments and recommendations. She plans to hold a news conference on Thursday to outline the results of her trip.

Salmon will reflect the findings from the visit in her annual reports on North Korean human rights to the UN Human Rights Council in March and the UN General Assembly in September.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260202010000760

The talks come just a day before a second round of US-mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi.

United States special envoy Steve Witkoff has said he held “productive and constructive meetings” with Russian special envoy Kirill Dmitriev in Florida, as President Donald Trump’s administration presses to end Russia’s nearly four-year war in Ukraine.

“We are encouraged by this meeting that Russia is working toward securing peace in Ukraine,” wrote Witkoff in a post on X following Saturday’s talks.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and White House adviser Josh Gruenbaum also attended the talks.

Neither side released details of what was discussed.

Dmitriev also met Witkoff and Kushner in January on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

He also held talks on the Ukraine war with US negotiators in a visit to Miami in December.

Saturday’s meeting comes before Ukrainian and Russian negotiators are expected to hold a second round of talks with US mediators in Abu Dhabi to discuss a US-backed plan to end Russia’s war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later appeared to suggest that the meeting would not take place on Sunday, saying in his nightly address that Ukraine was waiting for more information from the US about further peace talks and expected new meetings to take place next week.

A first US-mediated meeting was held in the United Arab Emirates’s capital last week, marking the first direct public negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv since the early weeks of the war.

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office this week that he believes “we are getting close” to a deal to end the war.

Trump announced on Thursday that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, had agreed to his request not to attack Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for a week amid extreme cold weather, which he said was “very nice” of the Russian president.

The Kremlin confirmed on Friday that Putin had received the request, with spokesperson Dmitry Peskov telling Sky News the Russian leader had “of course” agreed to the proposal.

Zelenskyy wrote on X that the issue of a ceasefire on energy infrastructure attacks had been discussed during last week’s talks, and that he expected the agreements to be implemented. “De-escalation steps contribute to real progress toward ending the war,” he added.

On Friday, the Ukrainian leader said in his nightly address that neither Moscow nor Kyiv had conducted strikes ⁠on energy targets from Thursday night onwards.

Several sticking points over the US-backed plan to end the war remain, including Russia’s demand for Ukrainian forces to withdraw from about one-fifth of the Donetsk region, and the potential deployment of international peacekeepers in Ukraine after the war.

Laura Dogu’s visit comes as Venezuela moves to privatise its oil sector under pressure from Trump.

The top United States envoy for Venezuela has arrived in Caracas to reopen a US diplomatic mission seven years after ties were severed.

Laura Dogu announced her arrival in a post on X on Saturday, saying, “My team and I are ready to work.”

The move comes almost one month after US forces abducted Venezuela’s then-president, Nicolas Maduro, from the presidential palace in Caracas, on the orders of US President Donald Trump.

Maduro was then taken to a prison in New York, and is facing drug trafficking and narcoterrorism conspiracy charges.

The move has been widely criticised as a violation of international law.

Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs Yvan Gil wrote on Telegram that he had received Dogu, and that talks would centre on creating a “roadmap on matters of bilateral interest” as well as “addressing and resolving existing differences through diplomatic dialogue and on the basis of mutual respect and international law”.

Dogu, who previously served as US ambassador to Honduras and Nicaragua, was appointed to the role of charge d’affaires to the Venezuela Affairs Unit, based out of the US Embassy in Bogota, Colombia.

Venezuela and the US broke off diplomatic relations in February 2019, in a decision by Maduro after Trump gave public support to Venezuelan lawmaker Juan Guaido, who claimed to be the nation’s interim president in January that year.

Minister of the Popular Power for Interior Diosdado Cabello, one of Venezuela’s most powerful politicians and a Maduro loyalist, said earlier in January that reopening the US embassy in Caracas would give the Venezuelan government a way to oversee the treatment of the deposed president.

Although the Trump administration has claimed that Maduro’s abduction was necessary for security reasons, officials have also repeatedly framed their interests in Venezuela around controlling its vast oil reserves, which are the largest in the world.

Since the abduction, Trump has pressured Interim President Delcy Rodriguez to open the country’s nationalised oil sector to US firms.

The two countries have reached ‌a deal to export up ⁠to $2bn worth of Venezuelan crude to the US, and on Thursday, Rodriguez signed into law a reform bill that will pave the way for increased privatisation.

The legislation gives private firms control over the sale and production of Venezuelan oil, and requires legal disputes to be resolved outside of Venezuelan courts, a change long sought by foreign companies, which argue that the judicial system in the country is dominated by the governing socialist party.

The bill would also cap royalties collected by the government at 30 percent.

The Trump administration said on the same day that it would loosen some sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector, and allow limited transactions by the country’s government and the state oil company PDVSA that were necessary for a laundry list of export-related activities involving an “established US entity”.

Trump has announced that he ordered the reopening of Venezuela’s commercial airspace and “informed” Rodriguez that US oil companies would soon arrive to explore potential projects in the country.

On Friday, Rodriguez announced an amnesty bill aimed at releasing hundreds of prisoners in the country, and said she would shut down El Helicoide, an infamous secret service prison in Caracas, to be replaced with a sports and cultural centre.

That move was one of the key demands of the Venezuelan opposition.