N. Korea slams new US human rights envoy as 'wicked' meddler in sovereign state affairs

Julie Turner, nominee for U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights, speaks during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington, D.C., May 17, in this captured image. Yonhap

North Korea on Wednesday denounced the new U.S. special envoy for the North's human rights as a "wicked woman" who has plotted anti-Pyongyang campaigns over rights issues and meddled in the internal affairs of sovereign states.

The Senate confirmed the appointment of Julie Turner, director of East Asia and the Pacific at the State Department, last week, as U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights issues. U.S. President Joe Biden named her as the envoy in January.

Calling Turner a woman of "ambiguous origin and nationality," a spokesperson at the North's Association for Human Rights Studies said she gained "notoriety" for plotting anti-Pyongyang schemes over rights issues, while "spitting out coarse invectives" against the North in the past.

She is "a person ignorant of even the concept of human rights or a human rights abuser embodying the inveterate bad habit of the U.S. which revels in meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign state and slandering it," the official said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

North Korea said the U.S. appointment of "such a wicked woman" clearly shows Washington's hostile intention against the North, warning that it could take "more powerful and merciless counteraction than ever."

"The U.S. should ponder all its words and deeds, mindful that the 'human rights issue in north Korea' can backfire on it spawning severe security issues," the official noted.

The North has long bristled at the international community's criticism of its human rights abuses, calling it a U.S.-led attempt to destroy its regime.

At the Senate foreign relations committee confirmation hearing in May, Turner said she, if appointed, will work to hold accountable those responsible for human rights violations and abuses in the reclusive North. (Yonhap)

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