(LEAD) N. Korea slams UNHRC's adoption of resolution on its human rights as 'intolerable act'

(ATTN: RECASTS headline, lead; ADDS comments from foreign ministry in paras 8-10)

SEOUL, April 6 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Thursday condemned the latest adoption of a resolution by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) that denounced the North's human rights violations as an "intolerable act of political provocation and hostility."

Han Tae-song, the North's permanent representative to the U.N. office in Geneva, said his country "categorically" rejected the U.N. resolution as "the most heavily politicized document of fraud," according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The resolution is "the most heavily politicized document of fraud which is full of such falsehood and fabrications," Han said in an English-language statement carried by the KCNA, claiming the resolution contained nonexistent phenomena in the North.

The UNHRC adopted a resolution denouncing North Korea's gross human rights violations by consensus Tuesday. South Korea co-sponsored the resolution for the first time in five years.

Han also took issue with the South's active cooperation to draft the resolution as co-sponsor, calling it "a mere colonial servant of the U.S."

"The DPRK will never tolerate any hostile act of the U.S. and its following forces encroaching upon our sovereignty and dignity, and will make every possible effort to defend the genuine people's system and their rights," he said.

The DPRK is the acronym for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Meanwhile, the South Korean government welcomed the adoption of the U.N. resolution.

"Our government ... welcomes the adoption of the resolution on North Korea's human rights by consensus following last year," Lim Soo-suk, spokesperson of Seoul's foreign ministry, told a press briefing.

South Korea is "deeply concerned with North Korea's systematic, widespread and grave human rights violations" as noted in the UNHRC resolution, he added.

The North has long bristled at the international community's criticism of its human rights abuses, calling it a U.S.-led attempt to topple its regime.

The UNHRC has adopted a resolution condemning North Korea's human rights abuses every year since 2003.

But South Korea did not co-sponsor such a U.N. resolution from 2019 to 2022 under the previous Moon Jae-in administration that apparently sought to avoid tensions with the North and resume inter-Korean dialogue.

sooyeon@yna.co.kr
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