BEIJING – North Korea on Sunday denounced a recent U.N. resolution condemning its human rights violations, warning of retaliation against Japan and other sponsor countries.
“We will take toughest counteraction” against the United States, and “Japan, too, can never escape this toughest counteraction,” the North Korean National Defense Commission said in a statement, Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency reported.
“Japan should bear in mind that if it continues behaving as now, it will disappear from the world map for good, not just remaining a near yet distant country,” the statement continued.
The resolution passed Tuesday by the Third Committee of the U.N. General Assembly sought to refer the North’s human rights record to the International Criminal Court and to hold the country’s top leaders responsible for crimes against humanity.
The resolution, which was introduced by Japan and the EU, reflects a U.N. commission of inquiry’s lengthy report in February on what it said was “systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations that have been and are being committed” by North Korea.
In a harsh reaction to the resolution, Pyongyang has threatened to conduct another nuclear test. In Sunday’s statement, it condemned the United States for having allowed the European Union and Japan to draft the resolution, as well as U.N. member states for “blindly” voting in favor of it.
“We have never recognized any ‘resolution’ worked out by the U.S.-led undesirable hostile forces to encroach upon our sovereignty and vital rights,” the North’s statement said. SOURCE
