A Unification Ministry official said Thursday that now is the time for North Korea to stop making accusations and instead make efforts to improve its human rights conditions.
 
The official made the remark after North Korea strongly criticized South Korea’s rival political parties for reaching agreements on a bill that urged improvements in the North’s human rights situation.
 
The official said the South has repeatedly expressed serious concern over human rights conditions in the North, adding that rival camps have come to terms on pushing forward the related bill after agreeing on the seriousness of the issue.
 
The official said the North should stop denouncing the South’s endeavors and determination to make the North’s human rights situation better and instead should self-reflect and work toward making significant improvements.
 
Earlier, the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland said in a statement that the South Korean parliament’s aim to plot what it called a slanderous human rights bill regarding the North is an intolerable provocation that seeks to turn inter-Korean relations back into a state of war.