HONOLULU – President Barack Obama Friday tightened U.S. sanctions on North Korea, targeting 10 individuals and three state agencies in response to the hacking of Sony Corp. and threats of violence against theaters and movie-goers.
The impact of the action to block U.S. bank access and business dealings with the targeted people and entities will be limited by the fact that impoverished North Korea already is largely isolated from the rest of the world. The administration has vowed more steps are coming.
The sanctions represent the first official measures taken by the U.S. government in response to the cyber-assault on Sony Pictures Entertainment’s computer system, an attack that Obama promised last month to address “in a place and time and manner that we choose.”
“We take seriously North Korea’s attack that aimed to create destructive financial effects on a U.S. company and to threaten artists and other individuals with the goal of restricting their right to free expression,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in a statement. “Today’s actions are the first aspect of our response.”
The cyber-attack on Sony computers exposed Hollywood secrets, destroyed company data and caused the studio to initially cancel release of “The Interview,” a comedy about a fictional assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The hackers rendered thousands of computers inoperable and forced Sony to take its entire computer network offline.
A group claiming credit for the cyber-attack invoked the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in threatening movie fans with violence if they went to see the film, prompting major theater chains to decide against showing the film. In a Dec. 19 statement, the FBI said it had collected “enough information to conclude that the North Korean government is responsible for these actions.”
After coming under criticism from Obama and some Hollywood stars for pulling the film back, Sony’s Culver City, California-based studio distributed the movie to several hundred independent theaters and released it through Internet video services. The company since has expanded its release of “The Interview” to the largest pay-television services and to additional theaters after initial showings occurred without incident.
Under previous sanctions, the United States has already blocked transactions involving individuals and entities that help North Korea sell and buy arms, procure luxury goods or engage in illegal activities such as money laundering or drug trafficking.
People in the U.S. are banned from doing business with individuals and entities designated by the Obama administration. The list already included the Reconnaissance General Bureau, North Korea’s primary intelligence agency that the Treasury named Friday. The new sanctions added the Korea Mining Development Trading Corp., the nation’s primary arms dealer, and the Korea Tangun Trading Corp., which buys commodities and technology to support the nation’s defense research.
The 10 individuals are either listed as government employees or representatives of the two corporations.
In promising a U.S. response to the hacking attack, Obama and his aides have said some aspects of it might not be made public. Obama said he would review whether the U.S. should put North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terror. That designation was lifted during President George W. Bush’s administration in an attempt to make progress on negotiations over the regime’s nuclear weapons program.
North Korea last week blamed the U.S. for an Internet outage it experienced, calling Obama “reckless in words and deeds.” It also said that any U.S. punishment over the Sony hacking would lead to damage “thousands of times greater.”
North Korea already is under international sanctions because of its nuclear weapons program, which it sees as a way to fend off any attempt at regime change and provide some leverage with the U.S., South Korea and China in negotiating future aid.
North Korea has for decades tried to make up for its deteriorating conventional war-fighting forces by developing nuclear bombs, ballistic missiles and long-range artillery. In recent years, it has added computer hackers to its list of asymmetric weapons as Kim charts his own path for the country.
North Korea’s approach to the outside world has alternated between bluster and measured steps suggesting openness to negotiation. In November, the regime released two detained Americans who had been sentenced to years of hard labor for committing “hostile” acts.
This week, Kim in his New Year speech raised the possibility of a summit with South Korean President Park Geun-hye. “If South Korea truly wants talks and improvement in relations, the suspended high-level contact can resume and talks on specific matters can also be held,” Kim said in a speech that was broadcast Dec. 31 on the Internet.
Yet Kim also continues saber rattling. He threatened to conduct the nation’s fourth nuclear test after a United Nations human-rights committee voted in November to hold the regime accountable for crimes against humanity.
The regime test-fired a long-range missile in April 2012, scuttling a deal reached two months earlier for 240,000 metric tons of U.S. food aid in exchange for a moratorium on weapons testing.
Six-nation talks on disarming North Korea’s nuclear program have been dormant since December 2008, and the North has since conducted two nuclear tests and a series of missile launches. U.S. military officials also have said they believe the North may now have the ability to miniaturize a nuclear warhead.
North Korea’s extreme isolation makes it difficult to gauge the regime’s motivations and its understanding of geopolitics. North Korea remains in a technical state of war with the South more than 60 years after the end of their conflict. There are more than 28,000 U.S. troops in South Korea, helping to defend one of the world’s most militarized borders.
With assistance from Sam Kim in Seoul and Andrew Mayeda in Ottawa.
