The government has denounced North Korea’s threat to carry out merciless retaliation for the passage of a resolution on its human rights conditions at a UN committee.
 
In a statement issued by a Foreign Ministry spokesman on Sunday, the government warned that if the North engages in provocation, it will “face stern consequences from the international community.”
 
The government condemned the North’s failure to accept the international community’s concerns and recommendations regarding its human rights conditions in the resolution and instead issuing threats of nuclear war.
 
The government urged North Korea to take substantial measures to improve its human rights conditions in line with recommendations in the UN General Assembly resolution. It added that South Korea, along with the other members of the Six-Party talks will closely coordinate and brace for the possibility of nuclear tests and provocations from the North.
 
The government’s statement came a day after the North’s National Defense Commission issued threats of retaliation in protest of the resolution. The North warned of the possibility of conducting a fourth nuclear test as it cited that it had withdrawn from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1993. It added that the South Korean presidential office will not be safe if a nuclear war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula.