In this photo provded by U.N. TV, Jo Chol-su, the former ambassador of North Korea to the United Nations office in Geneva, speaks as the representative of the North Korean government delegation during the fourth Universal Periodic Review of the reclusive country in Geneva, Nov. 8. Yonhap
North Korea on Friday denounced a resolution recently adopted by a United Nations committee regarding the country's human rights violations as a "politically motivated provocation."
A spokesman from North Korea's foreign ministry made the statement in a press release carried by the country's official Korean Central News Agency.
On Wednesday (U.S. time), the U.N. General Assembly's Third Committee adopted a resolution calling the human rights situation in North Korea "grave" and urging the abolition of laws that suppress people's freedom of thought, expression and religion, marking its 20th consecutive annual resolution on the matter.
The North Korean foreign ministry called the resolution "a grave politically motivated provocation encroaching upon the dignity and sovereignty" of the nation, saying it "strongly denounces and rejects the farce."
"We express serious concern over the fact that the practice of adopting of resolution ... is turning into a political means for interfering in the internal affairs and damaging the image of independent and sovereign states," the ministry noted.
The adoption itself is a violation of the basic spirit of the U.N. Charter, "whose core is the respect for sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs of countries," it also said.
Referring to the resolution's accusation of North Korea funding its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles programs through forced labor and other human rights abuses, the ministry said, "Protection of human rights apart from the national sovereignty is nothing but an empty talk."
It is an exercise of the "normal and legitimate right" of a sovereign state, for which no blame can be laid for taking "all necessary measures for defending its sovereignty," the statement said. (Yonhap)