Last week, I led a group of Republican senators that wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging her to immediately relist North Korea as a State Sponsor of Terrorism and we also introduced an amendment to force the Obama Administration into action.
Yesterday on ABC’s This Week, I was pleased to hear Secretary Clinton’s response that they are now considering relisting North Korea. This is a very important step that I hope President Obama will agree to.
However, just days before Secretary Clinton’s statement, her spokesman bluntly claimed the State Department doesn’t believe there are any recent acts by North Korea that can be defined as supporting terrorism:
REPORTER: A group of Republican senators has written a letter to the Secretary urging her to relist North Korea on the terror list. They specify certain unnamed ongoing terrorist activities. Do you share that assessment, and where do you want to go with that?
STATE DEPT. SPOKESMAN PHILIP CROWLEY: …As for North Korea, I think we’re aware of that letter. But as far as I know, firing off missiles and over-heated rhetoric is unwise and unhelpful, but does not meet the legal definition of terrorism.
REPORTER: They seem to say – but they don’t refer to those tests as a terrorist activity – to say that other ones are ongoing, that those are — Is there anything else that you’re aware of?
MR. CROWLEY: To list a country on the terrorism list, there’s a legal requirement there. And what we’ve seen so far, I don’t think meets that legal test.
Based on this statement, I eagerly await the State Department to certify:
