UN diplomats want North Korea rights on council agenda

Two-thirds of the United Nations Security Council on Friday requested that North Korea's human rights situation be placed on the council agenda for debate_ the first step toward a possible referral to the International Criminal Court.   The letter, submitted Friday morning to the current council president, says North Korea's human rights violations ``threaten to have a destabilizing impact on the region.''  The U.N.'s most powerful body rarely considers a country's human rights situation alone, and the letter is a strong statement that the signatories view the issue as one affecting international peace and security.    Placing this issue on the council's agenda is the latest step in growing international pressure this year on North Korea over an issue it has long disdained. A U.N. commission of inquiry report early this year detailed widespread human rights abuses in the impoverished but nuclear-armed country and warned that leader Kim Jong Un could be held accountable. And last month, the General Assembly's human rights committee approved a resolution calling on the Security Council to refer North Korea's human rights situation to the ICC. (Source: AP)