North Korea Acknowledges Running "Labor Camps"

In response to the highly critical UN human rights report released earlier this year, North Korea held a briefing at the United Nations to discuss the situation Tuesday.

At the meeting, North Korea for the first time acknowledged that the country runs labor camps to "reform" detainees "through labor", BBC reports.  An official, however, rubbished the criticism of the human rights records as just "wild rumors".

Choe Myong Nam, a North Korean Foreign Ministry official in charge of UN affairs and human rights issues, told at the briefing that there were "no prison camps" in the country; however, there were "detention centres where people are improved through their mentality and look on their wrongdoings".

He further said: "Both in law and practice, we do have reform through labor detention camps â no, detention centers â where people are improved through their mentality and look on their wrongdoings."

According to the report released in February by the United Nations, North Korea had been carrying out "unspeakable atrocities" on a huge scale against the citizens of the country. It is suspected that the nation holds thousands of people in prison camps, which until Tuesday North Korean authorities did not acknowledge in public.

North Korea's deputy UN ambassador Ri Tong Il said the secretary of his country's ruling Workers' Party had visited the headquarters of the European Union and had expressed interest in having a dialogue, which would include discussions on human rights expected next year. He said: "We are expecting end of this year to open political dialogue between the two sides," Associated Press states, the Huffington Post reports.