US: Kim Jong Nam Murder Could Land North Korea Back on Terror Blacklist

BenarNews staff
2017.11.03
Washington
171003-US-McMaster-1000 U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster gestures as he answers questions at the White House, Nov. 2, 2017.
AP

U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster has directly accused North Korean leader Kim Jong Un of being behind the murder of his estranged half-brother at a Malaysian airport earlier this year, saying it was an act of terrorism that could result in Pyongyang being relisted as a sponsor of terror acts.

Kim Jong Nam was poisoned to death while awaiting a flight at an airport on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 13. The United States and South Korea had suspected Pyongyang of being behind the murder.

An Indonesian woman and a Vietnamese woman are on trial for murder, accused of smearing Kim Jong Nam’s face with the deadly VX nerve agent. Malaysia says four men who have since fled to North Korea are also prime suspects, but prosecutors have not released their full names or confirmed their North Korean origin in court.

McMaster, who was briefing the media on Thursday ahead of President Donald Trump’s visit to Asia, said the Malaysian murder could set the stage for nuclear-armed North Korea’s re-inclusion in the State Department blacklist of nations suspected of sponsoring terrorism.

“[A] regime who murders someone in a public airport using nerve agent, and a despotic leader who murders his brother in that manner, I mean that’s clearly an act of terrorism that fits in with a range of other actions,” he told reporters.

“That is an option under consideration,” he said when asked how much thought he was giving to putting North Korea back on the blacklist. “Murdering your brother in an international airport with nerve agent sounds like terrorism to me.

“The president’s cabinet is looking at it as part of an overall strategy on North Korea” and “you will hear about that soon, I think.”

North Korea had been listed as a state sponsor of terror from 1988 until 2008, when President George W. Bush removed the country as part of an agreement to deal with its nuclear program that later collapsed.

Ed Royce, the Republican chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, urged the Trump administration to relist North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, calling for quick action.

“There is simply no reason for further delay of this decision,” he said.

“The North Korean regime’s murderous torture of Otto Warmbier and assassination of Kim Jong Nam are just two examples of a consistent pattern of recent terrorist activities,” Royce said in a statement late Thursday.

Warmbier was a U.S. student who died on June 19, 2017, at the age of 22, just six days after he was evacuated from North Korea where he had been imprisoned after he allegedly tried to steal a propaganda poster from a restricted area while visiting the country on a sightseeing tour.

He was released from North Korea with severe brain damage.

Trump, during his visit to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines, is expected to continue rallying international support for isolating North Korea over its illicit nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

North Korea carried out its sixth nuclear test, the biggest yet, in September and had carried out a series of missile tests, firing two ballistic missiles over Japan in August and September.

After talks with Trump during an official visit to Washington on Sept. 12, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said his country may close its embassy in North Korea and move the mission’s duties to the Chinese capital Beijing amid regional security concerns over Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile testing program.

He said Malaysia’s government was also re-evaluating bilateral diplomatic ties with Pyongyang that have lasted since 1973 but were rocked by Kim Jong Nam’s murder.

“We are reviewing our links to North Korea including diplomatic, political and economic relations,” Najib said.

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