President Trump may have said he and Kim Jong-un were “in love,” but the two countries are sparring over the North’s human rights record.
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has lashed out at the United States for continuing to press it to improve its human rights record, even with animosities between the two countries having eased so much that President Trump said he and the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, were “in love.”
North Korean diplomats and the state news media have unleashed blistering attacks on Washington since the United Nations’ human rights committee adopted a resolution this month condemning North Korea’s “longstanding and ongoing systematic, widespread and gross violations of human rights.” The resolution, similar versions of which have been adopted each year since 2005, is certain to be approved by the 193-member United Nations General Assembly next month.
As it did following the past resolutions, Washington is calling a United Nations Security Council meeting early next month to discuss human rights in North Korea and inviting the United Nations’ top human rights official, Michelle Bachelet, to address the session.
North Korea has invariably denounced such resolutions as attempts to overthrow its political system. But this year, it said the human rights “racket” raised by American diplomats at the United Nations was poisoning the mood for talks on denuclearizing North Korea following the historic summit meeting between Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump in Singapore in June.
At the Singapore meeting, Mr. Kim offered a vague promise to “work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
