The United States said on Tuesday that it will continue to press North Korea to improve its human rights record.

State Department spokesman Robert Wood told reporters that Special Representative for North Korea Policy Ambassador Stephen Bosworth on Monday met with a delegation of North Korean defectors and advocacy organizations as well as with families of Japanese nationals abducted by the North.

Wood said a range of U.S. officials will meet to discuss the human rights conditions in the communist state in conjunction with North Korea Freedom Week.

He said the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the North will be at the State Department for meetings on Wednesday.