Pyongyang, March 19 (KCNA) -- The permanent mission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to the United Nations issued the following press statement on March 19:

Despite concern and objection of the international society aspiring to justice, the U.S. mobilized its followers and convened an unlawful ill-purpose meeting in the UN arena to discuss our non-existent "human rights issue".

The Permanent Mission of the DPRK to the UN defines the U.S.-waged base "human rights" pressure campaign as the flagrant violation of and a serious challenge to the dignity and sovereignty of the DPRK, and resolutely denounces and rejects it.

What deserves to be called to account at the UNSC is the U.S. atrocity against humanity - its invasion of sovereign states and massacre of innocent civilians in wanton violation of the universally accepted international laws including the UN Charter.

With its shocking record of human rights violations, the U.S. has already earned an ill-fame in the international history as a "striking" human rights violator. That such a country takes issue with "human rights" situation of other countries is indeed a mockery of and an insult to human rights itself.

It is already a public knowledge within the international society that the U.S. advocacy of "human rights protection" is only a cover for its ignominious identity as the world’s worst human rights violator, an instrument for interference in the internal affairs of the independent sovereign states to invade them and overthrow their systems in the long run.

The U.S. launched a "human rights" campaign against the DPRK in the UN arena while staging the aggressive joint military exercise which poses a grave threat to our national security, and by doing so, it betrayed the fact that its "human rights" maneuver serves as a mechanism for invading the DPRK.

The UN should never be misused as a political means of the U.S. to blackmail and apply pressure on independent sovereign states of its dislike whenever it pleases.

To ensure genuine global peace and stability, and to promote human rights, the UN member states should categorically reject the politicization, discrimination and selectivity of human rights and also raise their voices of justice against the high-handedness and arbitrariness of the U.S. and its followers that are committed on the pretext of "human rights".

The DPRK's will is strong and clear. It will counter the illegal "human rights" campaign by the U.S. and its followers with the most powerful means.

The DPRK will make every effort to safeguard the socialist system, dear to our people as their own lives, and protect the genuine people's rights against all hostile acts of the U.S. and its followers. -0-