North Korea denounced as "self-contradictory" and hypocritical Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's call at the U.N. for Pyongyang to return all Japanese nationals it abducted and for an end to sexual violence against women, pointing out that Japan itself engaged in such behavior in the past century yet remains utterly unrepentant.
"This is a cynical ploy to cover up the despicable true colors of Japan as the arch criminal which perpetrated so many abduction cases and enforced sexual slavery, and evades responsibility for redeeming its crime-woven past," the North's official Korean Central News Agency said in a commentary Friday.
"By origin, Japan is a criminal state which is not entitled to talk about 'abduction' and 'sexual violence,' " KCNA said.