US peddling human rights: North Korea

North Korea yesterday accused the US of using the issue of human rights to undermine its regime, the latest criticism targeting Washington since a landmark international nuclear accord reached earlier this month.

"It is the ulterior motive of the US to step up its policy of pressure, sanctions and military blackmail toward the DPRK by peddling not only the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula but the `human rights issue' and a variety of other fictions," the Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

US George W. Bush last month named former White House aide Jay Lefkowitz as special envoy on human rights in North Korea. The appointment has angered the communist country, which has demanded the appointment be overturned.

Since announcing plans to give up its nuclear weapons program in an agreement with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the US on Sept. 19 in Beijing, the North has imposed conditions, such as a demand it receive electricity-generating reactors in advance.

The country has also accused Washington of planning to use the ongoing six-party negotiating framework to trick it into disarming before launching a nuclear attack. The US, which stations 32,500 troops in South Korea, denies it plans to attack the North.

Relations Pyongyang and Washington will worsen further "should the US step up its hostile policy towards the DPRK over the nuclear issue as well as over its nonexistent `human rights issue,"' the Rodong Sinmun commentary said.