North Korea criticizes U.S. over designation as terror sponsor

SEOUL, Korea, Republic Of — North Korea on Wednesday called U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to relist it as a state sponsor of terrorism a ``serious provocation’’ that justifies its development of nuclear weapons.

In the country’s first public response to its return to the American blacklist, the official Korean Central News Agency said North Korea has no connection to terrorism and does not care ``whether the U.S. puts a cap of `terrorism’ on us or not.’’

It said the U.S. action shows North Korea should continue to ``keep the treasured nuclear sword in our hands more tightly’’ to protect itself from American hostility.

``By re-listing (North Korea) as a `state sponsor of terrorism,’ the U.S. openly revealed to the whole world its intention to destroy our ideology and system by using all kinds of means and methods,’’ the agency said, attributing the comments to an unidentified spokesman at North Korea’s Foreign Ministry. ``Our army and people are full of rage and anger toward the heinous gangsters who dared to put the name of our sacred country in this wretched list of `terrorism’ and are hardening their will to settle all accounts with those gangsters at any time in any way,’’ it said. KCNA later published a separate statement attributed to a spokesman of the Korea Asia-pacific Peace Committee, a North Korean state organization, which said the move by ``old lunatic Trump’’ has caused the North Korean army and people to explode in ``hate and spirit to destroy the enemy.’’