North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un during a visit to a navy unit. Source: AFP

The comments from the ­hermit state yesterday come as the UN Security Council is due to meet next week to ­discuss North Korea’s rights ­record, amid calls for Pyongyang to be referred to the international court for crimes against ­humanity.

But after CIA torture revelations last week, North Korea hit back, slamming the US for ­committing “the gravest human rights violations in the world” and carrying out “brutal medieval forms” of torture.

“The United States is dreaming of a pipe dream to topple our regime through ‘human rights ­issues’,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman told the Korean Central News Agency.

“The US will have to experience the toughest-ever counter-action against its hostile policy against the DPRK.”

North Korea has written to the Security Council requesting a commission be set up to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the CIA abuses.

Its attempts at retaliation are part of an outraged response to a UN inquiry released in February that argued Pyongyang’s rights violations pose a threat to international peace and security.

The year-long inquiry led by former Australian High Court judge Michael Kirby heard testimony from North Korean exiles and documented a vast network of harsh prison camps holding up to 120,000 people, along with cases of torture, summary executions and rape.

Separately, the North Korean spokesman said the US would bear responsibility for “the breakdown of the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”.

The US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University said last week satellite images suggested North Korea was unlikely to follow through on a threatened nuclear test anytime soon.

AFP