North Korea makes it back into the terrorism list. Here is the reason as to why it happened.
President Donald Trump on Monday declared North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism, returning Kim Jong-Un’s nuclear-armed pariah regime to a short blacklist of targeted US foes.
Trump said the designation will impose further penalties on the country. He called it a long overdue step and part of the US “maximum pressure campaign” against Pyongyang. North Korea would join Iran, Sudan, and Syria on the list of state sponsors of terror.
The announcement was made by Trump during his Cabinet meeting.
“Today, the United States is designating North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism. It should have happened a long time ago. It should have happened years ago,” Trump said in his address to the Cabinet.
“In addition to threatening the world by nuclear devastation, North Korea has repeatedly supported acts of international terrorism including assassinations on foreign soil,” Trump said in a cabinet meeting.
North Korea had been removed from the list of state sponsor of terrorism under the George W Bush administration.
In February, Kim’s potential rival and elder brother Kim Jong-Nam died after he was sprayed with a nerve agent in Kuala Lumpur airport, in an assassination blamed on Pyongyang. US officials cited the killing as an act of terrorism.
The United States has long imposed severe sanctions on North Korea, and secretary of state Rex Tillerson, speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, said the designation was “very symbolic” but that “the practical effects may be limited”.
US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that other murders have been linked to North Korea, but the State Department said information about them “remains classified.”
“As we take this action today, our thoughts turn to Otto Warmbier and others affected by North Korean oppression,” Trump continued, underlining the legal case for the designation.
US student Warmbier did this year aged only 22 after he was repatriated from detention in North Korea already in a coma. US officials allege he was tortured in custody.
Trump warned that, in addition to the terror designation, Washington is preparing yet another round of sanctions to force Pyongyang to give up its nuclear missile program.
“Tomorrow, the Treasury Department will be announcing an additional sanction — and a very large one — on North Korea,” he said.
“This will be going on over the next two weeks and it will be the highest level of sanctions,” he warned.
“The North Korean regime must be lawful and end its unlawful nuclear ballistic missile development and cease all support for international terrorism, which it is not doing.”
While no details of new Treasury sanctions were released, the State Department said the terror designation would “penalize persons and countries engaging in certain trade with the DPRK.”
And “when a country designated as a State Sponsor of Terror carries out acts of terrorism, US victims of such attacks would be able to sue to seek relief in US courts.”
The White House has declared it will not tolerate Kim’s regime testing or deploying an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to US cities.
Experts believe Pyongyang is within months of such a threshold, having carried out six nuclear tests since 2006 and test-fired several types of missiles, including multi-stage rockets.
Kim’s government insists it will defy international sanctions to develop a capability it believes is essential to defending itself from the threat of US and South Korean invasion.
Washington is also pressuring the North’s key trade partner and traditional ally China to turn up the sanctions pressure and force Kim to come to the table to discuss his disarmament.
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