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Pyongyang lambasts US initiative to hold UNSC meeting on human rights in North Korea

North Korea vowed to "resolutely respond to any hostile actions of the United States and protect national sovereignty and the interests of its people," said Kim Sung-kyung, deputy foreign minister of the republic

SEOUL, August 15. /TASS/. Pyongyang has objected against a United Nations Security Council meeting requested by the United States to consider the human rights situation in North Korea, Kim Son Gyong, vice-minister for International Organizations of the North Korean Foreign Ministry, said in a statement posted on the KCNA news agency’s website on Tuesday.

"The DPRK resolutely denounces and rejects the despicable ‘human rights’ racket of the U.S. as a wanton infringement and a grave challenge to the dignity and sovereignty of the DPRK," the document says. Pyongyang also accused the United States of violating "the principle of depoliticizing human rights issue and the authority of the UNSC whose mission is to ensure world peace and security," saying that such actions are "the biggest threat to world peace and security."

"The DPRK will resolutely counter any hostile act of the U.S. threatening peace and stability of the Korean peninsula and the rest of the world and absolutely defend the sovereignty of the state," Kim said.

The US mission to the United Nations said earlier that the US along with South Korea and Japan had called an open UN Security Council meeting on the human rights situation in North Korean on August 17.

The US is chairing the Security Council in August that is why the meeting is considered appointed. Earlier, Russian requested a UNSC meeting on issues of Western weapons supplies to Ukraine on August 17.

Russia has repeatedly stressed that the United Nations has a special structure - the UN Human Right Council - to address human rights issues and the Security Council should stock to its mandate.