Pyongyang lashes out at US 'human rights offensive'

North Korea vowed Saturday to get tough with the United States, arguing that Washington is wrongly making issue with its human rights situation, its media said.

North Korea's regime is upset by U.N. moves to bring its top leaders to an international crime court, holding them responsible for the country's worsening human rights condition. North Korea claims that the United States is behind the U.N. move.

"Now that the U.S. 'human rights' offensive against the DPRK has reached an extreme phase, the DPRK formally notifies the U.S. that the DPRK will settle accounts with those related to the offensive without the slightest clemency and by every possible means and methods generation after generation," the North's highest decision-making body, the National Defense Commission said in an English-language statement released by the (North) Korean Central News Agency.

DPRK stands for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The North's response comes ahead of the release of a report by Marzuki Darusman, special U.N. rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea slated for Tuesday (New York time).