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US-NKOREA-POLITICS-DIPLOMACY
Dad of late N.Korea prisoner backs US talks with Pyongyang
OSLO, May 29, 2018 (AFP) – The father of Otto Warmbier, the US student who
died after being held in North Korea, said Tuesday he favoured US talks with
Pyongyang, a move he hoped would bring “the world’s most barbaric
dictatorship…out of its hole”.
Otto Warmbier was arrested in North Korea for a petty offence and held for
more than a year before he was released in a comatose state in 2017.
Warmbier, aged 22, died shortly after he was flown home unconscious.
Although North Korea claimed he had contracted botulism in detention, the US
has since alleged that he was tortured in custody.
US President Donald Trump is planning to hold a historic summit with North
Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un, scheduled for June 12 in Singapore.
“The diplomatic track with negotiations, I support them,” Otto’s father
Fred Warmbier said at the Oslo Freedom Forum, an annual gathering of human
rights activists in the Norwegian capital.
“Not talking to North Korea has helped foster the world’s most
threatening, barbaric dictatorship. I don’t know if talking to them is going
to change them but at least it will bring them out of their hole and force
them to engage.”
The diplomatic efforts have however not prevented Warmbier and his wife
Cynthia from pursuing legal action against North Korea.
The couple has accused the Pyongyang regime in a US court of murder and
torture of their son, who was sentenced to 15 years of hard labour for
stealing a propaganda poster.
“I’m going to do everything in my power to force them to be answerable to
what they did to my son,” Fred Warmbier said.
BSS/AFP/FI/ 1814 hrs