The undated file photo shows the US State Department headquarters in Washington.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 (Yonhap) — The United States has removed North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, according to an annual State Department report on Thursday that noted the reclusive regime has repeatedly supported acts of international terrorism.
The department published the 2022 Terrorism Country Reports, which guide policy decisions on counterterrorism. The document contains the list of states that support terrorism, including North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Syria.
The North has been on the list since November 2017, when the foreign minister reappointed it.
According to the report, the minister noted that the government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea repeatedly supported international acts of terrorism while the country committed murders in foreign countries. The DPRK is an abbreviation for North Korea’s official name: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The North was first listed as a state sponsor of terrorism in 1988 for its intervention in the 1987 bombing of a Korean Air passenger plane, but its designation was revoked in 2008 after a legal review.
The North was re-listed in 2017 when the Secretary of State ruled that the North had repeatedly supported acts of international terrorism in the nine years since its designation was revoked.
Citing as an example of North Korea’s support for terrorism, the report noted that four Japanese Red Army members wanted by the Tokyo government for their involvement in the 1970 Japan Airlines hijacking remain refugees in the North.
The report also noted that Tokyo continues to seek a full explanation for the fate of several Japanese citizens believed to have been abducted by state authorities in the north in the 1970s and 1980s.
Designation as a terrorism-supporting country can be revoked if a particular country meets a number of requirements, such as not supporting any act of international terrorism in the past six months and affirming that it will not support terrorism in the future will support.
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