South Korea and the U.S. reactivated for the first time in six years their consultative meeting on North Korea’s human rights situation.

According to the foreign ministry on Thursday, the head of the ministry's Korean Peninsula Peace Regime Bureau Chun Young-hee and U.S.’ Special Envoy on North Korean Human Rights Issues Julie Turner held such a meeting in Brussels on Wednesday. 

The South Korea-U.S. consultative meeting on the North’s human rights launched in 2016 during the Park Geun-hye administration to make the allies’ cooperation on the North’s human rights issues more comprehensive and systematic.

Seoul and Washington held the meeting a total of three times since the launch, including twice in 2016 and once in 2017. 

However, such meetings were not held during the Moon Jae-in administration which had placed importance on inter-Korean dialogue and cooperation and had remained passive on human rights issues. 

The meeting’s resumption came after the U.S. appointed a special envoy on such issues for the first time in six years. 

According to diplomatic sources, Chun and Turner agreed to hold the consultative discussions on a regular basis and to hold the next meeting in the first half of next year.