Seoul draws line between rights issue, no-slander deal

South Korea said Tuesday its support for a new U.N. report on North Korea's rights situation should not be linked to an inter-Korean agreement to stop slandering each other. On Monday, the U.N. Committee of Inquiry (COI) released the final report based upon its year-long investigations that states the North has committed organized, extensive and grave crimes against humanity. Speaking highly of the comprehensive report on the North's grave rights abuse situation, the Seoul government vowed to strive further to improve the circumstances in the communist country. "Issues on human rights have nothing to do with slandering the North. The rights situation is seen from the perspectives of the mankind's universal value," said a senior official of Seoul's unification ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs. After holding two rounds of rare high-level talks, the two Koreas last week agreed to stop making insulting remarks against each other to improve their relations. "Advocating the (human rights) value cannot constitute slandering Pyongyang in nature, and I believe that Pyongyang also will not link the two searate issues," he added. Following the release of the COI report, the communist country once again refuted the rights abuses cases cited in the report, saying such accusations are nothing but the international community's attempts "to topple the regime."    The COI was established in last March under a U.N. Human Rights Council resolution as the international community's first attempt to launch an official probe mission into widely condemned human rights abuses in North Korea. The communist country has long been labeled one of the worst human rights abusers in the world, ranging from holding up to 200,000 North Koreans in political prison camps to torturing the prisoners.