North Korea issued a strongly worded statement on Thursday denouncing a recently held human rights conference hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington D.C. on Monday.

The state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) published the statement, credited to an unnamed spokesperson from North Korea’s foreign ministry, who levied criticism at the U.S. government despite the conference being a privately organized event.

“In Washington on Feb. 17 the U.S. held a ‘conference on human rights’ against the DPRK under the absurd pretext of the first anniversary of the ‘report of the UN Commission of Inquiry’ (COI)