North Korea threatened South Korea Sunday over the opening of a U.N. human rights office in Seoul, saying it would lead to war on the Korean Peninsula.
The threat carried by the North’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper is the latest in a series of protests by North Korea over the establishment of the Seoul office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The office was opened on Tuesday to monitor and document human rights violations in the communist country.
“With the opening of the North Korean human rights office in Seoul, North-South relations have come to face the worst catastrophe,” the paper said. “The provocative anti-Republic human rights ruckus will only bring their own miserable self-destruction.”
North Korea has long been accused of gross human rights abuses, including public executions and torture, but the communist country has bristled at such criticism, calling it a U.S.-led attempt to topple its regime.
“The last stop of the anti-Republic human rights ruckus is war,” the paper said.
North Korea has boycotted the Summer Universiade to be held in South Korea next month in protest of the U.N. office. (Yonhap)
