WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Kyodo) -- The United States told Japan and South Korea on Monday that it has begun a review of whether to put North Korea back on a list of state sponsors of terrorism, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency said.
Quoting a senior South Korean official, Yonhap said the Feb. 13 killing of Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in Malaysia, in which Pyongyang's involvement is suspected, prompted the United States to take such action.
"I believe the U.S. (government) will take into account reactions from Congress," the official was quoted as saying, referring to growing calls among U.S. lawmakers for relisting North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism. Washington removed Pyongyang from the list in 2008.
Yonhap said the United States told Japan and South Korea of its intention in a trilateral meeting in Washington of senior diplomats handling North Korean issues.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Kenji Kanasugi, head of Asian and Oceanian affairs at the Japanese Foreign Ministry, declined to say whether the three officials discussed such a review in the United States. He only said, "The United States had increasingly severer views on North Korea."
According to a joint statement issued after the talks, the officials explored new measures to further restrict North Korea's funding for its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs.
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