U.S. President Donald J. Trump said Monday he intends to declare North Korea a state sponsor of terror.
According to a White House pool report, the U.S. Department of the Treasury will formally designate North Korea on Tuesday. Mr. Trump said the designation will impose further penalties on the country. He called it a long overdue step and part of the U.S. “maximum pressure campaign” against the North.
“It should have happened years ago,” the president said, calling Pyongyang “a murderous regime.”
Mr. Trump noted that North Korea “must end its unlawful nuclear and ballistic missile development,” while also ending its support for international terrorism.
The move returns North Korea to the list of countries the U.S. views as state sponsors of terror for the first time since 2008. That’s when the North was removed in a bid to salvage a deal to halt its nuclear development.
U.S. officials cited the killing of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un‘s estranged half brother in a Malaysian airport this year as an act of terrorism.
North Korea would join Iran, Sudan and Syria on the list of state sponsors of terror.