WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s national security adviser said North Korea could be re-added to the list of state sponsors of terrorism as part of Trump’s strategy to counter the North’s growing nuclear threat.
“You’ll hear more about that soon, I think,” the adviser, H.R. McMaster, said as he briefed reporters on Trump’s five-nation tour of Asia, which starts Friday. North Korea’s nuclear threat will be a key focus of Trump’s meetings with the leaders of Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines during the 12-day trip, Trump’s first official visit to the region.
McMaster cited the killing this year in a Malaysian airport of the estranged half brother of North Korea’s leader as an act of terrorism that could lead to the North’s placement on a list that currently includes only Iran, Sudan and Syria.
Malaysia has never directly accused North Korea, but South Korea’s spy agency has claimed the attack was part of a plot by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to kill his brother, Kim Jong Nam.
“A regime who murders someone in a public airport using nerve agent, a despotic leader who murders his brother in that manner, that’s clearly an act of terrorism that fits in with a range of other actions,” McMaster said. Adding North Korea to the list of state sponsors of terrorism “is something that’s under consideration.”
Kim Jong Nam died in February after two women rubbed his face with a liquid later identified as VX nerve agent as he passed through the airport in Kuala Lumpur.
Under legislation enacted Aug. 2, the State Department is required to determine within 90 days, or around Thursday, whether North Korea meets the criteria of being a state sponsor of terrorism.
A State Department official said Thursday that officials are aware of the requirement and will provide the information to Congress when a determination has been made. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The U.S. kept North Korea on its terrorism blacklist for two decades after the 1987 bombing of a South Korean airliner killed 115 people. But President George W. Bush lifted the designation in 2008 to smooth the way for aid-for-disarmament negotiations.
Re-designating North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism would be largely of symbolic significance. North Korea is heavily and increasingly sanctioned for its nuclear and missile activity in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions. Sanctions from a terror designation are unlikely to inflict significant, additional economic punishment.
I can’t think of a better way to provide ironclad proof of the breathtaking depth of his ignorance to North Korea’s most vulnerable neighbors.
BTW: I hope the Japanese will make me happy by serving Spraytan Stalin nothing but sashimi, preferably lots of uni and amateurishly prepared fugu.
(Don Jr., Eric, and Ivanka furiously scribble notes to themselves.)
There. That oughta get that Russia shit off the front page.
As North Korea should add US to their terrorism list for our direct and specific nuclear threats toward them.
President Donald Trump’s national security adviser says North Korea could be added to the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
McMaster cites the killing earlier this year in a Malaysian airport of the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as an act of terror that would qualify.
So, having your brother murdered makes your country a state sponsor of terrorism? And yet, a white sniper with an arsenal of assault weapons who kills 58 and injures 500+ in Las Vegas isn’t a terrorist…he’s just a sick guy with a lot of problems. I must have slept through the part of class when that was explained.