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North Korea slams EU for criticism on human rights

SEOUL: North Korea accused the European Union on Friday of a “dastardly act” for criticising Pyongyang’s human rights record after Britain said the reclusive Stalinist state could face sanctions for the way it treats its citizens.

The European Union is expected to present the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva with a resolution condemning North Korea’s record.

British Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell, speaking in Geneva on Thursday, urged the United Nations’ top rights forum to condemn any abuses in North Korea, which he said had the “worst record of any country anywhere in the world”.

“If North Korea does not in time genuinely and constructively engage both on our human rights concerns and on the concerns about its possession of nuclear weapons, then I think we will have to look for tougher options of containment or sanctions. I am not advocating that at the moment,” Rammell told reporters.

The North’s official KCNA news agency cited a North Korean delegate to the rights talks as saying the European Union was acting selfishly by backing the position of the United States.

The delegate repeated a charge the North has made before, that Washington was launching an attempt at “bringing down the system of the DPRK under the pretext of human rights”, KCNA reported

DPRK is short for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. reuters

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