North Korea again lambasted South Korea Monday for its support of a recent United Nations resolution calling for the referral of the North to the International Criminal Court over its dire human rights situation.
   
The criticism came a day after the North's powerful National Defense Commission vowed "merciless punishment for those who dare impair the country's prestige," saying the determination of its military servicemen to retaliate is running high.   
   
In an article carried Monday by the Rodong Sinmun, an organ of the North's ruling Workers' Party of Korea, Pyongyang denounced the South for welcoming the resolution and threatened to "mercilessly punish the South Korean authorities' human rights campaign against the DPRK." 
   
DPRK is the acronym of the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. 
   
In another story, the North claimed that the South Korean officials "blew chances of holding a high-level, inter-Korean meeting" by sticking to their "bad habits of escalating confrontation with fellow countrymen."
   
In early October, the two Koreas had agreed to hold another round of high-level inter-Korean meetings the following month at the latest during the North Korean delegation's surprise cross-border visit to the South. But Pyongyang later rejected the agreement, citing what it claimed was the South's hostile stance toward it.
   
The North's Korean Central Television also aired interviews of its angry residents on Monday, who condemned in unison South Korea and the international community for alleged anti-Pyongyang campaigns and pledged retaliation and punishment.
   
"The crazy men out there dared to mention our highest dignity.
How can we let such culprits and puppet enemies breathe on earth?"
Jong chol, a member of the North's national price committee, told the broadcaster.
   
Separately, the North's National Reconciliation Council slammed Seoul for its "zealous involvement" in the human rights resolution.
   
The council vehemently denounced Seoul's active involvement, calling it a "serious politically-motivated provocation and a traitorous act" leading inter-Korean relations to catastrophe, said the Korean Central News Agency, the North's official media, citing a statement issued by the council.
   
North Korea said that South Korea's actions were tantamount to "a declaration of a war" against the DPRK, adding that the South's call for dialogue with Pyongyang was hypocritical.
  

Experts say the North appears to be stoking hatred among the people toward South Korea and other foreign countries to strengthen the unity of its society and to boost loyalty to its young leader Kim Jong-un. (Yonhap)