The United Nations will open its field office in Seoul this week to deal with the human rights situation in North Korea, foreign ministry officials said Sunday.



The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights is scheduled to open the envisioned rights office in downtown Seoul on Tuesday, they said, adding that it will work on monitoring and documenting human rights in North Korea.



The role is based on a report released in February by the Commission of Inquiry, a U.N. panel tasked with probing human rights in the North, wrapping up its one-year-old inquiry on the issue.



In the report, the panel recommended a series of actions, including the establishment of such a field-based structure, to address the problem in the communist nation.



In March, the Human Rights Council adopted a resolution calling for the OHCHR to submit a report on the field office to the council early next year.



The office is also expected to serve a bridge role between domestic civic groups working to address human rights in the North and the international community as an organization under the wing of the U.N.



Last week, the OHCHR already opened its Twitter and Facebook accounts for the envisioned Seoul office and began communicating with netizens in and out of the country.



"Hello world! We are the United Nations Human Rights Office (Seoul). Our office will be launched very soon," read its Facebook message. "We will be doing a lot of work on monitoring and documentation of the human rights situation in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea."



The field office will be staffed by one manager and several assistants, according to sources familiar with the issue.



It recently completed the process of hiring the staff members, including the chief, said the sources.



When it opens, however, relations between the two Koreas are expected to worsen as the North has strongly protested the move.



On May 29, Pyongyang threatened to retaliate against South Korea over the U.N.'s plan to open the field office.



The North will "mercilessly punish" South Korea by mobilizing all means possible if a U.N. office were set up in Seoul, the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement carried by the country's official Korean Central News Agency.



The North condemned the envisioned U.N. office as an "unpardonable provocation" and "open declaration of war against it."



North Korea's human rights record drew global attention last year when the U.N. General Assembly adopted a landmark resolution calling for the U.N. Security Council to refer the country to the International Criminal Court.



North Korea has long been labeled one of the worst human rights violators in the world. But Pyongyang has bristled at such criticism, calling it a U.S.-led attempt to topple its regime. (Yonhap)