Overview
- The U.N. Human Rights Council, which adopted its annual North Korea resolution by consensus Monday, renewed the special rapporteur’s mandate and cited “systematic, widespread and gross” abuses.
- North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, in a statement carried by state media, called the measure a “grave political provocation” and said it “denounces and rejects it in the most powerful language.”
- The statement warned that the “malicious behavior” of the 50 co-sponsoring countries would be “taken into account,” and South Korean officials read the message as pointed at Seoul.
- Pyongyang said the U.N. process is politicized and selective, invoked “double standards,” and urged probes into “state-sponsored terrorism,” citing children killed by precision weapons in the Middle East.
- The resolution continues a more than two-decade practice of annual scrutiny that North Korea routinely rejects.