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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP has 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.
“Should have happened a long time ago. Should have happened years ago,” Trump declared, announcing the designation at the start of a White House cabinet meeting.
North Korea is already under a wide array of United States and United Nations sanctions, and what is at this stage a largely-symbolic terror designation will not have much immediate economic impact in itself.
But US officials see the designation as a way of ratcheting up pressure on Pyongyang and especially on other states that may be failing to fully enforce the sanctions already in place.
The designation of state sponsor of terror was removed from North Korea by President George W. Bush in 2008. North Korea was named among the ‘axis of evil’ countries allegedly supporting terror that were named by Bush in his 2002 State of the Union address.
“In addition to threatening the world by nuclear devastation, North Korea repeatedly supported acts of international terrorism including assassinations on foreign soil,” Trump said.
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.
Tortured in custody
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 died 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. 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 “penalise 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.
Assassinations on foreign soil
Until North Korea’s designation, the only three countries still on the state sponsor list were Iran, Syria and Sudan — and Sudan has begun cooperating with US counterterrorism efforts and can now expect to be removed at some point.
Some have argued that whatever military threat North Korea poses to the United States and its allies Japan and South Korea, its actions do not meet the standard “repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism.”
But Trump, who was reportedly moved to fury by Warmbier’s death, has listened to more hawkish voices, who point to a murky but allegedly extensive pattern of aggression.
“Today’s designation is long overdue as North Korea continued its sponsorship of terrorism,” argued Anthony Ruggiero, a sanctions expert at the Federation for Defense of Democracies think tank and former State and Treasury department official.
“A few years ago after North Korea’s cyber hack of Sony Pictures, it threatened a 9/11 style attack against US movie theaters,” he said, adding that Kim Jong-Nam’s assassination was only the “most visible example” of overseas repression.
The State Department said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had advised Trump to make the designation after a “thorough and ongoing review of information and intelligence from a variety of sources.”
“The Secretary of State determined that the government of the DPRK has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism, as the DPRK has been implicated in assassinations on foreign soil,” a senior official said.
Following the decision, she said, Washington will renew its efforts to persuade hold-out countries to cut all ties with Kim’s regime and force him to negotiate.
© – AFP 2017 with reporting by Rónán Duffy
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When is he putting Saudi Arabia on his black list?
@Jamie McCormack: He’s totally cucked to SA
@Jamie McCormack:
Because that would be a ridiculous idea you’re trying to keep Democrats onside.
@Dean Moriarity: who’s trying to keep Democrats onside? By not listing SA? I’m pretty sure SA sponsoring terrorism is a bipartisan fact.
Yemen is the untold horror, what’s happening there is evil. The stinking hypocrisy of the West is hard to stomach.
@Jamie McCormack: Yup and the Brits are knee deep in it too. Sickening
@Dean Moriarity: Pointing muslim migrants to europe instead of taking them in isn’t very democratic of SA.
@Richard Sweeney: Of course they are. Their glorious empire didn’t just vanish overnight. Silent weapons for secret wars.
The U.S. should be put on the terror list with this oran-u-tang in charge.
@Philip Gerard: Orangutans are compassionate, intelligent and peaceful creatures, nothing like the Donald.
@Philip Gerard:
Earlier today a young African woman spoke about racism to Leo ‘Socks’ Varadkar.
She remarked:
“Every day I’d be walking home, I’ll be called a gorilla or a monkey”
You should take her message on board.
@Dean Moriarity: Whatever that’s supposed to mean. Tw@.
The US is probably the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world.
@JJ: They’re just sub contacting for Russia.
@methodical2020: dont forget the british government!
If NK uses its nukes everybody on here will be saying why didn’t the US do something to stop this happening.
@Tommy Whelan: everyone that survives the fallout.
@Tommy Whelan: If NK use their nukes we’ll all be back to the Stone-Age.
@Jamie McCormack: if America use there’s we won’t be here to worry about the Stone Age
@Bridget O’Hanlon: theirs
@Tommy Whelan: How would you stop it oh Resident Armchair General?
@Bridget O’Hanlon: Indeed Bridget, I remember being a young lad going on CND marches with my Mam years ago. People scoffed and called us hippies but we are in a dangerous moment for humanity.
@TheHeathen: put a tomahawk through Kim’s bedroom window at 2am in the morning . Problem solved .
@Tommy Whelan: With next to zero intelligence assets on the ground in NK the US honestly don’t have a bulls notion where he is at anyone time or if “him” is actually a body double or not … Get it wrong and Seoul is wiped out not to mention that NK have probably gotten thousands of sleeper agents into the US over the years who would be ready to strike there probably making 911 look like a game of Giant Jenga…
@Jason: Easy on the weed, there Jay.
The US and the UK and Israel are the countries who sponsor stare terrorism! This is just another excuse to invade and liberate!! Look at Iraq…blamed on WMDs..war based on a lie..country is ruined! People of Iraq had a better life under Saddam Hussein…Afganistan….invaded on a lie ..to catch a saudi who was funded by the US who was in Packistan! Country ruined! Only countries to use nukes are the US…chemical weapons used by Uk us and Israel…..wake up!!
@Robbie Moles: over 40 countries where involved in the war in Afghanistan .
@Tommy Whelan: while that is correct it was only the UK and Canada that supoorted the inital invasion. That just means over 40 countries have the blood of nearly 300,000 afgans on their hands..so over 40 countries can kill nearly half a million civilians and face no action but 1 country (NK) can defend themselves with threats and they are the terrorists???
If NK and Kim’s regime didn’t have nukes maybe the west, including Europe, wouldn’t be worried about their “terrorist activities” but they do and that threat alone deserves an extreme response(sanctions and so on) which mightn’t be justified otherwise. One could argue that Israel also holds extreme views(religiously zealous) and has nukes but they are not threatening to target the west on a near weekly basis.
@winston smith: we’ve heard it all before as in the so called “Weapons of mass destruction “ America the biggest warmongers on the planet!
Colette, there is no question that NK possesses nukes whereas Iraq was questionable and with nukes you cannot afford to make a mistake even once.
@winston smith: Yup, no doubt whatsoever. They’ve said so themselves and threatened to use them as well. A good call by Trump here.
@winston smith: Pakistan makes your argument completely ridiculous.
@Colette Kearns: Iraq did have weapons of mass destruction . They had enough nerve agent to wipe out the population of Israel.
TheHeathern…no more ridiculous than Israel but again Pakistan is not threatening to nuke the west!
@winston smith: Big Kim hasn’t threatened to nuke the West. He’s threatened Guam and the States after military exercises on his border and after trading insults with Big Donald Dotard. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have been involved in more terrorist activity in a week than North Korea has in its lifetime, highlighting the complete hypocrisy of the USA.
@TheHeathen: how is the US responsible for what Saudi does . Saudi is not threatening the US like NK .
@Tommy Whelan: I never said they were responsible, I said it was hypocrisy that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are not on the state sponsors of terror list.
@Tommy Whelan: the saudis have funded most attacks on us bases and funded the 9/11 attacks…but they control all the wealth so are not guilty..
I am not a supporter N Korea is the rea reasonl Trump is using the terror list on N Korea America just want to go to war to test and try out some new fire power ?
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