North Korea's foreign ministry on Thursday condemned the UN Human Rights Council's recently adopted annual resolution on its human rights record as a 'grave political provocation,' warning of consequences for critics. The response follows the Geneva council's consensus adoption of the measure on Monday, co-sponsored by 50 countries including South Korea.
North Korea's foreign ministry spokesperson issued a statement on April 2 condemning the United Nations Human Rights Council's resolution—adopted by consensus at its 61st regular session on Monday—as a "grave political provocation against our national dignity and sovereignty."
"(Our) foreign ministry regards the act of adopting a human rights resolution against our republic as a grave political provocation against our national dignity and sovereignty and condemns it with the strongest language," the spokesperson said, according to the Korean Central News Agency.
The statement criticized the U.N. human rights review system targeting individual states as hostile and contrary to the U.N. Charter's non-intervention principle. It highlighted over 20 years of such resolutions against North Korea as evidence of politicization, selectivity, and double standards in the U.N. human rights arena.
Pyongyang warned that the "malicious acts" of countries slandering its institutions would be taken into account in future relations. It also alluded to a U.S. attack allegedly killing hundreds of children in an Iranian school, deflecting from the human rights scrutiny.
