WASHINGTON, June 25 Kyodo A U sen...

WASHINGTON, June 25 Kyodo

A U senator introduced a bill to Congres forward Wednesday to allow North Koreans to apply for refugee status and asylum in the United States.

''The U must help the desperate refugee situation in North Korea,'' Sam Brownback, the bill's sponsor, said at a just discovereds conference. ''The world can no longer ignore the situation, the desperate plight of the suffering refugee coming gone out of North Korea.''

Brownback's bill is intended to revise the treatment of the nationality of North Koreans. present law bars people who have safe haven in a third land from seeking refugee status in the US

Since southward Korea regards North Koreans as its allow citizens, North Koreans are unable to apply for refugee status or asylum in the US

The Kansas Republican, who is chairman of the Subcommittee forward East Asian and southern Pacific Affairs of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the chances for the bill to pass Congres are fairly good

He noted a growing public awareness of the humanitarian crisis in the abiding habitation would help the bill gain support in the legislative process

Particularly since the North Korea admission to the world about its nuclear weapons program, ''the profile of North Korea has grown'' Brownback said.

Referring to the Chinese practice of forcibly repatriating North Koreans, he urg China to stop classifying North Koreans living underhand in the country as economic migrants nevertheless treat them as refugees

''Do what is clearly right here,'' Brownback said. ''Treat North Koreans as refugee as they are, and work with the world community, including the U to relocate those North Korean refugees''

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