Pyongyang on Monday slammed the US for scheduling an informal UN Security Council (UNSC) meeting to discuss the human rights violations in North Korea, calling it a “heinous hostile act.”
North Korea’s Rebuke
In a statement on Monday, the secretive regime’s foreign ministry said that the US timed meeting to occur on Friday this week to coincide with the “large-scale war exercise” it is holding with South Korea starting today.
It accused Washington of “scheming” to “coercively” hold the meeting on a “non-existent” human rights issue and “bitterly” denounced the US’ “vicious human rights racket,” calling it the “most intensive expression of its hostile policy” toward the North.
North Korea says it launched two "strategic cruise missiles" from a submarine early Sunday. Each missile flew about 1,500 km, it says.
— William Gallo (@GalloVOA) March 12, 2023
Pics via KCNA: pic.twitter.com/sklGYcfwYo
The North dismissed the move, saying that it had gotten “used to” the US’ “evil practice” of pressuring the North over its human rights issues “whenever it is driven into a tight corner, as it can no longer contain [North Korea] with the nuclear issue.”
Pyongyang also slammed Washington for abusing the issue as a “dirty means for interfering in internal affairs of independent sovereign states to bring down their social systems and change their regimes.” It claimed that the US’ “racket” had “nothing to do with ensuring genuine human rights” and was simply a “politically-motivated hostile means” for “tarnishing” the North’s image and “stamping out the genuine rights and interests of the Korean people.”
Timing
The upcoming UNSC meeting comes as tensions on the Korean Peninsula are heightened due to the North’s recent string of weapons tests, including cruise missiles it launched from a submarine on Sunday, to protest the US-South Korea’s Freedom Shield exercise.