US leaves N. Korea on state sponsors of terrorism list in 2022 report

U.S. Department of State in Washington is shown in this July 19, 2019 file photo. AP-Yonhap

The United States has kept North Korea on its list of state sponsors of terrorism, an annual State Department report showed Thursday, noting the reclusive regime repeatedly supported acts of international terrorism.

The department released the 2022 Country Reports on Terrorism, which serves as a guide for policy decisions on counterterrorism. The document entails the list of state terrorism sponsors, which includes the North, Iran, Cuba and Syria.

The North has remained on the list since November 2017, when the secretary of state redesignated it.

"The secretary determined that the DPRK government repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism, as the DPRK was implicated in assassinations on foreign soil," the report said. DPRK stands for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The North was first listed as a state sponsor of terrorism in 1988 for its involvement in the 1987 bombing of a Korean Air passenger flight, but its designation was rescinded in 2008 after a legal review.

The North was put back on the list in 2017 as the secretary of state determined that the North had repeatedly supported acts of international terrorism in the nine years since its designation had been rescinded.

As examples of the North's support for terrorism, the report mentioned that four Japanese Red Army members, who are wanted by the Tokyo government for participating in a 1970 Japan Airlines hijacking, continue to shelter in the North.

The report also noted that Tokyo continues to seek a full accounting of the fate of numerous Japanese nationals believed to have been abducted by the North's state entities in the 1970s and 1980s.

The terrorism sponsor designation can be rescinded when a designated country meets an array of requirements, such as not supporting any acts of international terrorism during the previous six months and offering assurances that it will not support terrorism in the future. (Yonhap)