N. Korea vows counteraction over proposed U.N. resolution on N.K. human rights

North Korea pledged Sunday to take "the toughest counteraction" against a proposed U.N. resolution targeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un over the North's dismal human rights record.

South Korea, the United States and their like-minded partners began drafting a new resolution last Tuesday, calling for the referral of the highest official responsible for North Korea's human rights violations to the International Criminal Court.

The highest official to be included in this year's resolution means North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, a diplomatic source said last week.

Last year, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a similar resolution that called for the U.N. Security Council to refer the North's human rights abuses to the ICC. The resolution led to the Security Council adopting the issue as an official agenda item for the first time.

North Korea "will foil the hostile forces' reckless 'human rights' hysteria against it with the toughest counteraction," an unidentified spokesman for North Korea's Foreign Ministry said in a comment carried in the country's official Korean Central News Agency.

The spokesman denounced the draft as a mean plot of the U.S. and its followers, claiming that the U.S. is the world's worst human rights abuser and a human rights tundra and criminal state.

President Park Geun-hye and U.S. President Barack Obama held a summit last week and pledged to work with the international community to improve North Korea's human rights record and ensure accountability for human rights violations.

"Given the horrific treatment of the North Korean people by their government, our two nations will continue to expose abuses and call for accountability for human rights violations," Obama said.

North Korea has long been accused of grave human rights violations, ranging from holding political prisoners in concentration camps to torture and carrying out public executions.

The North has denied any rights abuses, describing the accusations as a U.S.-led attempt to topple its regime. (Yonhap)

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