North Korea on Saturday rejected the latest
U.N. resolution denouncing human rights conditions in the communist country,
calling the move a U.S.-led "political plot" to topple its regime.
The U.N. General Assembly has adopted such a resolution on North Korea every year since 2005. Pyongyang has bristled at any talk of its human
rights conditions.
"The 'resolution' is a product of the political plot of the hostile forces who have nothing to do with the protection and improvement of human rights," a spokesman for the North's Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the nation's official Korean Central News Agency.
"The hostile forces led by the U.S. hatch this plot every year to bring down the DPRK's system," the unidentified spokesman added. DPRK stands for
the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
In its resolution adopted Thursday (New York time), the U.N. General Assembly said it "expresses its very serious concern at the presence of continuing reports of systematic, widespread and grave violations of civil,
political, economic, social and cultural rights in" North Korea.
South Korea co-sponsored the resolution drafted by the European Union and Japan.
North Korea has long been labeled one of the worst human rights violators in the world. The communist regime of leader Kim Jong-il does not tolerate dissent, holds hundreds of thousands of people in political prison camps across the nation and keeps tight control of outside information flowing into the country.
The North compared the U.S. and other Western nations that sponsored the resolution to a "thief crying 'Stop the thief!'" accusing them of racial
discrimination, maltreatment of immigrants and abuse of prisoners.