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NORTH Korea, amid ongoing fallout over “The Interview,” has issued a new threat against the United States and refused to appear at a UN meeting on the country’s human rights record.

North Korea has issued a new threat against the US over its accusation that Pyongyang was behind the hack of Sony Pictures. But while the diplomatic fallout has North Korea set to boycott today’s UN Security Council meeting over the country’s human rights record, it remains unclear whether Pyongyang was truly responsible for the attacks, cybersecurity experts say.

In a wordy statement released by the state Korean Central News Agency yesterday, North Korea’s National Defence Commission claimed that the country is “fully ready to stand in confrontation with the US in all war spaces including cyber warfare space.”

“Our toughest counteraction will be boldly taken against the White House, the Pentagon and the whole US mainland, the cesspool of terrorism, by far surpassing the ‘symmetric counteraction’ declared by Obama,” the statement said, referring to the president’s comments on CNN Sunday that the US would “respond proportionally” to the “cybervandalism” against Sony.

BBC News Korea correspondent Stephen Evans noted that the statement “has weight because it comes from the most powerful body in North Korea, the National Defence Commission, which is chaired by Kim Jong-un.” Evans adds that the statement “has two arguments — essentially ‘we didn’t do it’ and ‘whoever did do it was right’.”

In part of the Sony hack furor, North Korea has refused to appear at the UN Security Council today, where the council is set to discuss Pyongyang’s human rights record for the first time, The Associated Press reports.

Yesterday, China condemned the cyberattacks on Sony, but argued there was no proof of North Korea’s hand in the attacks. “Before making any conclusions there has to be a full accounting of the facts and foundation,” Reuters quotes a foreign ministry official as saying. “China will handle it in accordance with relevant international and Chinese laws according to the facts.”

Though North Korea has a long history of ties to criminal activity, some cybersecurity experts are sceptical over Washington’s accusations against Pyongyang. The Christian Science Monitor’s Passcode, which covers cybersecurity, reports that many said the evidence provided Friday by the FBI was neither new nor convincing.

Passcode also reports that the speed with which Washington accused North Korea raises questions, as cybercrime investigations can take months, if not years, to conduct. — Christian Science Monitor