When President Bush travels to South Korea next week, he will be able to announce a new ambassador, following a breakthrough late Thursday in her stalled nomination.

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., lifted his hold on the nomination of Kathleen Stephens to become the head of the U.S. mission there, after months of demanding that the State Department include North Korea’s dismal human rights record in the portfolio of issues at the ongoing six-party talks on Pyongyang’s clandestine nuclear program.

A Senate Democratic leadership aide said that the removal of Brownback’s hold all but assured that the Senate would confirm Stephens late Thursday evening or Friday morning, allowing her to assume her post soon after.

The break in the stalemate came in a Thursday morning hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee when lead negotiator Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific affairs, promised to elevate the human rights issue in bilateral discussions.

“Hill assured me that the U.S. will address North Korea’s human rights abuses at the six-party talks,” Brownback said.

Stephens is currently an adviser in Hill’s bureau and served as his deputy from 2005 to 2007.

Hill also promised at the hearing to invite Jay Lefkowitz, State’s special envoy for North Korean Human Rights, to all future negotiations with the North Koreans.

But after follow-up calls with Lefkowitz and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Brownback issued a carefully worded statement in which he said human rights would be included only in the “normalization working group” that would come after the nuclear talks, if that issue gets resolved.

Also, Lefkowitz would be invited to all meetings “except those specifically dealing with nuclear disarmament,” Brownback said.

Regardless, Brownback faced mounting pressure from leading Republicans, including Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., who publicly pleaded for the Senate to move on the nomination.

Sen. George V. Voinovich, R-Ohio, also had a hold on the Stephens nomination in an attempt to pressure the South Korean government to resolve the case of a child abducted from one of his constituents, but that hold was lifted earlier this month.