DPRK rejects UN resolution on human rights

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Monday rejected a UN body's resolution condemning its human rights violations amid rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

The DPRK "totally opposes and rejects" the resolution, "a product of the vicious hostile policy towards it," a Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted by the official KCNA news agency as saying.

The reaction came three days after the UN Human Rights Council endorsed the resolution on a vote of 30-6, with 11 abstentions.

The resolution condemns, among other things, "the long-standing and ongoing systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations and other human rights abuses" in the DPRK.

The spokesman claimed that the United States and other hostile countries, while "unable to bring down the DPRK by taking issue with it over its nuclear issue," now seek to invent an excuse for toppling the country's social system by intensifying "human rights racket" against Pyongyang.

"Human rights precisely mean national sovereignty," he added.

The latest move came as Pyongyang vowed Sunday to carry out a "new form" of nuclear test to further strengthen its nuclear deterrence if the United States continues its hostile policy.