Is North Korea a terrorist state?

By John Burton

This question is surprisingly being debated after President Donald Trump last week decided to restore the North to the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, which now includes Iran, Syria and Sudan. North Korea was first put on the list in 1988 for clearly recognizable terrorist activities, including a bomb attack against senior South Korean officials in Rangoon in 1983 and blowing up a Korean Air passenger jet in 1987.

U.S. President George W. Bush removed North Korea from the list in 2008 as part of an unsuccessful effort to resume talks with Pyongyang on curbing its nuclear and missile program. In putting North Korea back on the list, Trump cited the political assassination of Kim Jong-nam, half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, in Malaysia and the alleged torture and subsequent death of American college student Otto Warmbier as reasons for the action.

A debate has centered, however, on whether these events this year constitute terrorist acts. The U.S. does not have a standard legal definition for “international terrorism” and what constitutes “support” for them. Terrorism seems to be in the eye of the beholder, which makes selecting which countries should be on the list a highly political choice. What is clear is that who appears on the terrorism list is inconsistent. Putin’s Russia has also assassinated political opponents on foreign soil, but Trump has hardly criticized Moscow.

Washington is considering removing Sudan from the terrorist list despite its continued abysmal human rights record, including attacks on civilians in the Darfur region and the torture of political opponents. Pakistan has escaped being placed on the list despite supporting Muslim terrorist groups in India and providing aid to the Taliban fighting U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

It could even be argued that Saudi Arabia should be labeled a state sponsor of terrorism because it has financed Islamic militancy around the world. But Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are viewed as U.S. allies, while North Korea is an enemy. Trump could have done a better job of answering his critics by specifically spelling out the terrorism charge sheet against North Korea instead of vaguely referring to the Kim Jong-nam and Warmbier cases.

But perhaps he saw no reason to do so because Congress has been pushing for such an action and the President new his decision would play well with his conservative base. A more serious question is whether Trump should have taken this action now. Although the decision is clearly part of his administration’s “maximum pressure and engagement” policy toward North Korea, it is largely symbolic because Pyongyang is already under heavy U.S. secondary financial sanctions and additional sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council this year.

Most of the sanctions triggered by Trump’s decision have been covered by other sanctions in place. The U.S. clearly hopes that labeling North Korea as a terrorist nation will persuade other countries, mainly in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa, to cut financial, trade and even diplomatic ties with Pyongyang. But the move appears to have undermined recent hopes that Trump would pursue a more conciliatory policy toward North Korea.

He said in Seoul, for example, that he wanted to “make a deal” with Kim Jong-un and invited North Korea to end its isolation and join the world community. North Korea has not conducted a missile test since Sept. 15 and this quiet period potentially provided an opening for renewed diplomatic dialogue. Instead, there are worries that the terrorist state designation will provoke Pyongyang to renew its missile and nuclear tests.

The decision will revive fears that Trump is intentionally provoking Pyongyang to carry out such tests, which could justify a strong U.S. response, including possible military action. It would have been better if Trump had waited until North Korea resumed such tests before slapping Pyongyang with the terrorist label, strengthening the U.S. case in the eyes of the world.

John Burton (johnburtonft@yahoo.com), a former Korea correspondent for the Financial Times, is now a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and consultant.