(LEAD) N. Korea again vows to bolster war deterrence over U.N. resolution

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SEOUL, Nov. 22 (Yonhap) -- North Korea denounced the United States Saturday for getting the United Nations to adopt a resolution that calls for the referral of its top leaders to international justice over its dire human rights records, vowing to bolster its war deterrence against "hostile powers."

Earlier this week, the U.N.'s Third Committee passed a non-binding resolution calling for North Korea to be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for its massive human rights violations. The resolution is based on a U.N. Commission of Inquiry (COI) report published in February.

Calling the resolution "a product of the anti-North Korea plot," Pyongyang's main newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, said that the U.S. launched the human rights campaign "in a bid to invent a pretext for starting an invasion."

Threatening that the U.S. and its allies will be held responsible for all consequences to be entailed by the U.N. resolution, the paper said the situation on the Korean Peninsula "is now close to a phase of extreme tensions."

"The war deterrence of the DPRK will be bolstered up unlimitedly to cope with the U.S. invasion of the country," the party newspaper said, using the acronym of the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Separately, the North also rebuked South Korea for helping the U.S. pass the resolution, insisting that it is equivalent of declaring an all-out war.

"We will not tolerate any move to hurt our dignity, system and people under the name of human rights," the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, a party organization, said in a report by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

"South Korea had led the U.N. move to pass the resolution by mobilizing defectors. Seoul had instigated the adoption of the resolution with fabricated materials," it added.

In the face of what it sees as growing hostility toward it, the bellicose regime has threatened to intensify its nuclear weapons deterrence.

North Korea conducted nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013, prompting the U.N. to slap sanctions on Pyongyang in accordance with U.N. resolutions condemning its missile launches and nuclear tests. Undeterred, the North has threatened to carry out "a new form" of nuclear test.

graceoh@yna.co.kr
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