UN human rights expert is ‘US puppet’

Seoul: Pyongyang on Friday accused the newly appointed UN special rapporteur on North Korean human rights of being a "puppet of the US" and making "unpardonable reckless remarks".

The accusations came as the new rapporteur, Elizabeth Salmon, visited Seoul on her first trip since being appointed to the role last month. Salmon, a Peruvian professor of international law, arrived earlier this week and has held meetings with South Korean officials and civic group members, including female defectors from the North, to discuss the situation in the isolated, nuclear-armed country.

"We had already made clear our principled stand that we neither recognise nor deal with any ‘special rapporteur’ who is merely a puppet of the US," said an unnamed spokesman for North Korea’s foreign ministry in an English statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).