North Korea denounced as a "US-orchestrated political...

North Korea denounced as a "US-orchestrated political plot" a UN resolution calling for the reclusive state to allow investigations into allegations of torture and human rights abuses. The EU-initiated resolution adopted the previous week also showed that the European Union had joined the United States in slandering North Korea, a foreign ministry statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency said.
"The DPRK (North Korea) resolutely denounces the resolution ... as a product of the US-orchestrated political plot to isolate and stifle the DPRK," the statement said.
"This glaringly proves that the EU has openly joined the US in its moves to achieve its sinister political purpose to slander the inviolable social system in the DPRK and force it to change its political system, instead of seeking genuine dialogue and cooperation with it in the field of human rights," the statement said.
The resolution on North Korea was adopted by the 53-member UN Human Rights Commission after a vote in Geneva on April 15, prompting a threat from Pyongyang to quit the commission.
The US-backed resolution expressed concern over allegations of torture, public executions, forced abortions and prison camps in the Stalinist country.
North Korea rejected the document as showing double standards as "innocent Iraqis including children, women and the aged under the US illegal occupation are being killed under the absurd charges of being 'terrorists'...."
"But the EU has kept mum about this and even failed to express even the slightest concern about that," the North Korean statement said.
The resolution, which relied on information from aid agencies and other experts on human rights situations in North Korea, urged Pyongyang to be more transparent to enable an independent picture of the situation in the country to be created.