North Korea has denounced US President Donald Trump’s decision to relist it as a state sponsor of terrorism, calling the move a ‘serious provocation and violent infringement’.
Trump put North Korea back on a list of state sponsors of terrorism on Monday, a designation that allows the United States to impose more sanctions and risks inflaming tension over North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs.
In North Korea’s first reaction to the designation, a spokesman for the foreign ministry denied in an interview with the state media outlet KCNA, that his government engaged in any terrorism.
North Korea has denounced US President Donald Trump’s decision to relist it as a state sponsor of terrorism, calling the move a ‘serious provocation and violent infringement’. Pictured: North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un
President Donald Trump designated North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism on Monday, following through on his administration’s promises throughout this trip to Asia to make a decision soon
The US designation only made North Korea more committed to retaining its nuclear arsenal, the official said. Pictured: An intermediate-range strategic ballistic rocket, the Hwasong-12, lifting off near Pyongyang earlier this year
He called the state sponsor of terrorism label ‘just a tool for American-style authoritarianism that can be attached or removed at any time in accordance with its interests’.
The US designation only made North Korea more committed to retaining its nuclear arsenal, the official said.
‘As long as the US continues with its anti-DPRK hostile policy, our deterrence will be further strengthened,’ he said, referring to North Korea by the initials of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
‘The US will be held entirely accountable for all the consequences to be entailed by its impudent provocation to the DPRK.’
The North’s official added that the country has no connection to terrorism and ‘doesn’t care whether or not the United States places the hat of terrorism on our heads.’
He said the US action shows North Korea should continue to ‘firmly grab the treasured nuclear sword’ to protect itself from American hostility.
The designation came a week after Trump returned from a 12-day, five-nation trip to Asia in which he made containing North Korea’s nuclear ambitions a centerpiece of his discussions.
Announcing the designation, Trump told reporters at the White House: ‘In addition to threatening the world by nuclear devastation, North Korea has repeatedly supported acts of international terrorism, including assassinations on foreign soil.’
In a Cabinet meeting, Trump called the designation ‘a very critical step’ that he said will ‘start right now.’
‘Should have happened a long time ago. Should have happened years ago,’ Trump said.
The president also said new sanctions are on the way for the ‘murderous regime,’ invoking Otto Warmbier, an American college student who died days after his return to the US from North Korea earlier this year.
Iran, Sudan and Syria were already on the terror blacklist, with Sudan being the most recent of the three to be blacklisted in 1993.
North Korea had been designated state sponsor of terrorism but George W. Bush removed it from the list in 2008.