North Korea has lashed out at the United States for criticizing it over human rights abuses, with the country's Foreign Ministry warning such moves were pushing Pyongyang in "a direction where the U.S. does not want to see."
A senior official with the Foreign Ministry's Institute for American Studies was quoted by the North's official Korean Central News Agency late Saturday as saying that a recent U.S. State Department statement addressing the dire rights situation in the North was "full of falsehoods and fabrications, which stems from a sinister political purpose to tarnish the dignified image" of the country.
"Although the U.S. is making desperate and foolish efforts to bring us down by clinging to the 'human rights' racket along with the 'maximum pressure' aimed at destroying our system, it should bear in mind that such an attempt will never work against us but instead push us dynamically to a direction where the U.S. does not want to see," the unidentified Foreign Ministry official was quoted as saying.