A senior South Korean politician will visit North Korea for the third anniversary of late leader Kim Jong-Il's death, the government said Monday, stressing that the trip was to give condolences and was not political. 

Park Ji-Won, a member of the opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy, will lead a seven-member delegation to the city of Kaesong Tuesday to deliver a floral wreath, the unification ministry said.

A U.S. citizen who said he had crossed illegally into North Korea held a press conference in Pyongyang Sunday to denounce his own country's U.S. political and economic systems.

North Korea has held a press conference with nine people it says are the young refugees controversially repatriated from Laos last year, state media confirmed, in a further bid to refute claims they had been imprisoned and executed.

The group, then aged 15 to 19, were arrested in Laos in May 2013 and eventually returned to the North via China, despite pleas by Seoul and the U.N. against their repatriation due to concerns for their safety once they returned to their repressive homeland.

The U.S. diplomat responsible for North Korea said Friday that Pyongyang is proceeding with its nuclear program and showing no clear sign of steps that would permit the resumption of international talks on ending it.

The negotiations, known as the six-party talks, began in 2003 and consist of five countries -- China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States -- trying to convince North Korea to drop its atomic development in exchange for aid and other incentives.

A South Korean court on Friday overturned a 35-year old conviction of spying for North Korea against a family of eight, two of whom were executed in the early 1980s.

The district court in the eastern city of Chuncheon ruled that the eight had been illegally detained and then tortured to extract confessions, the Yonhap news agency reported.

North Korea released a fresh video Thursday purportedly showing nine young defectors controversially repatriated from Laos, in an apparent bid to refute claims that they had been executed or imprisoned.

The nine refugees, then aged 15 to 19, were arrested in Laos in May 2013 and eventually returned to the North via China, despite pleas by Seoul and the U.N. against their repatriation.

Recent satellite images suggest North Korea is unlikely to follow through on a threatened nuclear test anytime soon, a U.S. think-tank said Thursday.

Pyongyang had raised the possibility of what would be the reclusive nation's fourth test in response to a U.N. resolution condemning its human rights record.

North Korea, rattled by U.N. condemnation of its human rights record, urged the Security Council Wednesday to censure the United States for its use of "inhuman torture" methods.

Reacting to the release of a scathing U.S. Senate report detailing the CIA's brutal treatment of al-Qaida suspects, Pyongyang said the revelations posed a major test of the Security Council's credibility.

North Korea released Tuesday video footage showing some of the young refugees who were controversially repatriated by Laos last year, in an apparent bid to refute claims that the eldest members of the group had been executed.

The nine refugees, aged 15 to 19, were arrested in Laos in May 2013 for illegal entry and were eventually returned to North Korea via China despite pleas by Seoul and the United Nations against the repatriation. 

The U.N. Security Council will meet this month on North Korea's rights record following calls to refer Pyongyang to face crimes against humanity charges, a spokesman said Friday.

Ten of the council's 15 members had asked for the meeting in a letter sent to Chadian Ambassador Cherif Mahamat Zene, whose country holds the council's presidency for December.