By Reuben Staines
Staff Reporter
U.S. President George W. Bush is likely to give his final approval soon to the North Korean Human Rights Act after the House of Representatives endorsed the controversial legislation Monday.

The bill, which Pyongyang has strongly condemned as an attempt to undermine its sovereignty, was amended and approved by the Senate last week.

A legislative source in the U.S. said Bush is unlikely to delay signing the human rights bill into law. ``There is no particular reason for President Bush to reject the bill, which both the Senate and Congress have passed unanimously,’’ he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. ``The president will probably sign it before the presidential election on Nov. 2.’’

Under the bill, Washington can spend up to $20 million a year until 2008 for humanitarian aid to North Koreans inside and outside the country. It insists on strong monitoring of aid to ensure it is not diverted to the military and appoints a special envoy to oversee North Korean human rights conditions.

The legislation also clarifies North Korean defectors’ eligibility for refugee status in the United States and provides $4 million for expanding American radio broadcasts into the North to promote democracy and human rights.

But North Korea has responded angrily to the legislation’s progress, labeling it part of a ``hostile’’ U.S. policy ``hell bent’’ on toppling the communist state.

In a statement carried by the North’s Korean Central News Agency, a foreign ministry official said the human rights bill has ``rendered the dialogue and negotiations for solving the nuclear issue meaningless,’’ adding that Pyongyang has no choice but to strengthen its nuclear deterrent.

South Korean officials have also privately expressed reservations about the U.S. legislation, fearing it will worsen tensions on the Korean peninsula.

However, Republican Rep. James Leach of Iowa, the main sponsor of the bill, said he and other supporters of the package were driven by purely humanitarian considerations and had no hidden agendas.

``It is not a pretext for a hidden strategy to provoke regime collapse or to seek collateral advantage in ongoing strategic negotiations,’’ he stated.

Even so, many analysts believe the bill has been a factor in North Korea’s refusal to participate in a new round of six-way talks on its nuclear program. A fourth round of talks were originally scheduled for before the end of September, but Pyongyang pulled out citing what it called a hostile attitude from Washington.

Last week, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su-hon upped the ante, saying his country had ``weaponized’’ the fuel from 8,000 reprocessed spent fuel rods, which experts say could raise Pyongyang’s nuclear cache from one or two bombs to eight.

Seeking to put inter-Korean relations back on track, Seoul’s Unification Minister Chung Dong-young called on North Korea on Tuesday to return to the negotiating table. ``North Korea must come forward to dialogue and it must not waste time,’’ Chung told a presidential advisory body.

rjs@koreatimes.co.kr