Report: North Korea rejects UN rights resolution (AP)

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea strongly rejected a U.N. resolution condemning its human rights record and warned South Korea would "face the dearest price" for co-sponsoring it, reports said Saturday.

The U.N. General Assembly's human rights committee approved the resolution Friday. The resolution expressed "very serious concern" at rights violations in North Korea, including the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers, the "all-pervasive and severe restrictions" on freedom of thought and religion, and violations of workers' rights.

Before the committee passed the resolution by a vote of 95 to 24 with 62 abstentions, the deputy chief of North Korea's mission to the United Nations in New York said it was part of a conspiracy to upend the isolated communist state.

"The resolution is a product of a political plot to forcibly change North Korea's system and ideology," Pak Dok Hun said, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

The 192-member General Assembly is expected to vote on the resolution next month. It is not legally binding but carries moral weight and is supposed to reflect the majority view of world opinion.

South Korea co-sponsored the resolution for the first time, in a clear departure from a decade of liberal rule under which it abstained or stayed away from U.N. human rights votes for fear that criticizing the North would hurt bilateral ties and damage efforts to resolve a nuclear standoff.

Pak denounced South Korea's decision to co-sponsor the resolution, saying it was "a provocation to the North's dignity," according to Yonhap.

He said South Korea "will face the dearest price" for its "treacherous act," according to South Korean news channel YTN.

Separately Saturday, North Korea's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland denounced the South Korean government's policy toward the North since President Lee Myung-bak took power in February.

The committee said Seoul was "following the path of reckless and dangerous confrontation" and North Korea would "sternly cope with it as we have already declared."

The statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency is the latest indication that the North may go ahead with a threat to ban border crossings starting Dec. 1.

Relations between the two Koreas have been tense since conservative Lee took office with a pledge to get tough with the North.

North Korea has ratcheted up accusations against the South in recent weeks over what it calls Seoul's refusal to clamp down on "confrontational" activities, including activists' distribution of leaflets critical of the North's communist government.

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