President Trump announced Monday that he planned to put North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, as the administration increases pressure on Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapon and long-range missile programs.
President Trump announced Monday that he planned to put North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, as the administration increases pressure on Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapon and long-range missile programs.
“It should have happened years ago,” Mr. Trump said, calling dictator Kim Jong-un ’s government “a murderous regime.”
He said North Korea “must end its unlawful nuclear and ballistic missile development” and end its support for international terrorism.
The designation will trigger new sanctions. By the time the new sanctions are in place over the next two weeks, Mr. Trump said, it will be “the highest level” of sanctions yet imposed on North Korea.
President George W. Bush removed North Korea from the list in 2008 as part of an aid-for-disarmament deal. Before that, North Korea suffered with the designation for two decades after the rogue regime was implicated in the 1987 bombing of a South Korean airliner that killed 115 people.
North Korea would be the fourth country designated by the U. S. as a state sponsor of terrorism. The other three countries currently on the list are Iran, Sudan and Syria.
In making the announcement, Mr. Trump referenced the regime’s assassination of Mr. Kim’s half brother, who in February was poisoned with VX nerve agent at a Malaysian airport.
The president also referenced Otto Warmbier, a University of Virginia student held in North Korea for 17 months after being convicted of stealing a political poster. When he was returned to the U. S. in June, he had suffered severe brain damage and died a short time later.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce applauded the president’s move.
“Over the past year alone, Kim Jong-un and his regime brazenly assassinated his brother with a chemical weapon and brutally tortured Otto Warmbier, leading directly to his tragic death,” said the California Republican. “These aren’t isolated incidents, but are examples of a consistent pattern of terror.”
He said the designation “rightly exposes the Kim regime’s utter disregard for human life and is an important step in our efforts to apply maximum diplomatic and financial pressure on Kim Jong-un .”
