South Korea has for the first time co-sponsored a United Nations resolution condemning North Korea`s human rights record, the foreign ministry said Wednesday.

The move is likely to anger the communist state and worsen cross-border relations, which have soured since a conservative government took office in Seoul in February.

`Human rights is a universal value, which should be dealt with separately from other issues,` deputy ministry spokesman Cho Yun-Soo told AFP.

`In accordance with this basic position concerning the North Korean human rights issue, the government took part as a co-sponsoring state` for the UN resolution, which was led by the European Union, he said.

North Korea, one of the world`s most impoverished countries, is frequently accused of human rights abuses on a massive scale.

The US State Department`s 2007 rights report says the regime is guilty of numerous serious abuses, citing reports of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention and disappearances, harsh prison conditions and the use of torture.

The UN resolution, due to be circulated this week, is expected to be put to a vote at the General Assembly in mid-November.

Such resolutions have been introduced to the General Assembly every year since 2005.

It is the first time that South Korea has co-sponsored such a resolution, although it voted for one in November 2006 after the North`s first nuclear test strained relations.

Seoul abstained in the General Assembly vote in November 2007.

Under past liberal governments Seoul mostly avoided public criticism of the North`s rights record, but the new conservative government vowed to raise rights issues and take a generally firmer stance in cross-border relations.

Pyongyang has cut off almost all ties with Seoul in protest.

In March this year the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva condemned the North`s `systematic, widespread and grave violations` of human rights. South Korea supported that vote.

Together with Seoul, more than 50 countries including Japan and the United States have co-sponsored this year`s General Assembly resolution.

It calls for an immediate halt to systematic and serious human rights abuse in the North, access by human rights agencies, the settlement of kidnapping issues and the resumption of inter-Korean dialogue, the ministry said.

Japan has refused to give aid to North Korea as promised under a six-nation disarmament deal. It wants Pyongyang to account fully for Japanese nationals kidnapped by the North in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies.