TOKYO — North Korea has asked the U.N. Security Council to investigate the CIA’s “brutal medieval” treatment of terrorism suspects just as the council agreed to consider a resolution calling for Pyongyang to be brought before an international court for its own human rights violations.

In the wake of the Senate report released last week about secret CIA interrogations, North Korea is joining other nations in criticizing American practices, in what appears to be an effort to deflect attention from its own problems.

“The so-called ‘human rights issue’ in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is politically fabricated and, therefore, it is not at all relevant to the regional or international peace and security,” Ja Song-Nam, North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations, wrote in a letter to Chad’s ambassador, the current council president.

“On the contrary, the recently revealed CIA torture crimes committed by the United States, which has been conducted worldwide in the most brutal medieval forms, are the gravest human rights violations in the world,” he added in the letter, according to the Associated Press.

Ja asked the council to look into the issue with a view toward establishing “a thorough probe into the CIA torture crimes.”

His objections came as the Security Council agreed to consider a resolution calling for North Korea’s leaders to be called before the International Criminal Court to answer charges of crimes against humanity.

A U.N. committee last month passed a resolution, sponsored by the European Union and Japan, condemning the North Korean leadership for decades of human rights abuses.

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