The newspaper said that it is nonsensical for Western countries to take issue with human rights situations in North Korea and particularly singled out Japan, calling it a country globally known for crimes against humanity.

"Japan would be better off to liquidate the sexual slavery crimes that its soldiers committed first before talking about human rights of others and bring under control its own house that has turned into an abject wasteland for human rights," it said.

The newspaper also suspected that Japan is trying to undermine the current "positive" mood on the Korean Peninsula by taking advantage of the human rights issue as an "excuse" to step up sanctions on North Korea.

It urged Japan and others, including the European Union, to stop their useless efforts to bring the North's human rights issue to the United Nations, saying that such efforts would only end up exposing their "ugly face."

Japan and the European Union have been leading the drafting of a new UN resolution condemning human rights abuses in the North.

The resolution was recently submitted to a UN panel and it is highly expected to be adopted by the General Assembly in December for the 14th straight year.

North Korea has long been accused of gross human rights violations, a charge it denies as a US-led attempt to topple its regime. (Yonhap)