The UN Security Council(UNSC) held a session on the human rights situation in North Korea on Thursday, but a formal response such as a statement or a resolution failed to materialize.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the meeting that the Security Council is keeping silent about various human rights violations committed by the world’s most repressive and totalitarian country.

Chairing the meeting, the U.S. ambassador said there has been no improvement since a UN report mentioned systematic human rights violations by the North Korean regime ten years ago.

South Korea’s Ambassador to the UN, Hwang Joon-kook, said that if the North's human rights issue is not addressed, its nuclear issue cannot be resolved either, noting that the regime is applying resources to nuclear development instead of the welfare for its people.

Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy, however, criticized the attempt to address the issue by the U.S. and its allies as “hypocrisy,” saying that the U.S., South Korea and Japan are strengthening their military power in East Asia.

North Korea’s envoy did not attend the open meeting on the country’s human rights abuses, which was held for the first time in six years since 2017.