U.S. House approves legislation designating N. Korea as a terror state

U.S. House approves legislation designating N. Korea as a terror state. April. 05, 2017 07:17. 특파원ddr@donga.com.

As the U.S.-China Summit is scheduled on April 6 to 7, the U.S. started to put pressure in full range toward the public. The House of representative overwhelmingly passed a bill calling for relisting North Korea as a terror sponsor in 9 years and a resolution condemning the ICBM development of the North and retaliatory actions of China.

“It will be a meaningful action to block North Korea’s nuclear ambition.” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce said after passing the legislation, The Korean Interdiction and Modernization Sanctions Act” that is known to as the toughest-ever sanctions on Pyongyang passed through the House Foreign Affairs Committee and will be introduced in the regular session.

Diplomats in Washington are saying that Trump should consider an option to impose sanctions on Chinese banks that make transactions to North Korea in order to pressure the country in practice. Anthony Ruggiero, a chief researcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told in an interview with CNN that the U.S. Treasury Department needs to go after big Chinese banks and companies suspected of aiding North Korea more aggressively and imposes financial penalties. The State Department announced on Monday that the U.S. representative of the six-party talks as well as Special Representative for North Korea Policy Ambassador Joseph Yun will travel to Moscow April 4 to meet Russian officials and discuss cooperation on North Korea’s nuclear and missile issues.

In a meanwhile, an argument was raised that a Russian cyber security firm found an evidence of North Korea’s attempt to hack Bangladesh’s account at the New York Federal Reserve. According to CNN Kaspersky, a Russian cybersecurity company, disclosed publicly that a hacking group known as “Lazarus,” which was suspected of hacking the account, was linked to computers in North Korea at a cybersecurity conference on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten.