WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump on Monday declared North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism, returning Kim Jong Un’s government 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 -- which was removed by then president George Bush in 2008 -- as a way of ratcheting up pressure on Pyongyang and on other states that may be failing to fully enforce the sanctions already in place.

“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

Officials in Washington said that other murders had 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. Officials allege he was tortured in custody.

President 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 programme.

“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,” he warned.

“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 “penalize 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.”

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2017