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Mugged By Reality (In Asia)

By Ilan Berman on 12.16.07 @ 11:56AM

Earlier this year, as part of its diplomatic breakthrough with North Korea, the Bush administration pledged to remove the DPRK from the State Department's list of terrorist-sponsoring nations. But now, a new study by the Congressional Research Service could make that commitment somewhat difficult to carry out, to put it mildly. "The State Department’s long-standing claim that North Korea 'was not known to have sponsored any terrorist acts since 1987' was particularly important in 2007 in view of the clear goal... to remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism," says the CRS study, released on December 11th. "However, questions about the credibility of the claim are relevant in view of the appearance of reports from reputable sources that North Korea has provided arms and possibly training to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.”

topics:
North Korea