Seoul, April 2 : North Korea on Thursday condemned a recent United Nations resolution on human rights violations in the country, calling it a "grave political provocation."

The reaction came after the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council adopted its annual resolution on Pyongyang's human rights by consensus Monday at its 61st regular session, co-sponsored by 50 countries, including South Korea.

"(Our) foreign ministry brands the adoption of this anti-DPRK 'human rights resolution' as a grave political provocation to the dignity and sovereignty of the DPRK and denounces and rejects it in the most powerful language," a ministry spokesperson said in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency.

DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the official name of North Korea, Yonhap news agency reported.

The latest UN resolution condemned the long-standing and systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations and abuses in North Korea and urges the North to take "immediately all steps" necessary to end such crimes.

The statement argued the UN human rights review system targeting individual states constitutes an act of hostility that runs counter to the UN Charter's principle of non-intervention in internal affairs.

"The practice of adopting such anti-DPRK 'human rights resolution' which has lasted for 20-odd years is a miniature fully showing the deplorable present situation of the UN human rights arena which has been extremely polluted by politicization, selectivity and double standards," it added.

The North Korean foreign ministry warned the "malicious behavior" of countries that joined in slandering North Korea's national and social institutions would be taken into account.

It also referred to hundreds of children in need of special protection being targeted and killed by precision-guided weapons, apparently alluding to a US attack that led to the deaths of nearly 200 students and teachers at a school in Iran, in what appeared to be an attempt to deflect human rights criticism against the regime.

An official at Seoul's unification ministry assessed that North Korea's reaction to this year's human rights resolution appears more intense than in the past, referring to the regime's pledge to take participating countries into account.

Sources said this year's pointed statement appears to be targeted at the South Korean government as North Korea could accuse the South of taking an inconsistent stance because Seoul co-sponsored the resolution despite its continue calls for peaceful coexistence with the North.

/IANS