Trump declares DPRK state sponsor of terror

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US President Donald Trump has put the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism amid heightened nuclear tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Trump said the designation will impose further penalties on the country and called it part of US's "maximum pressure campaign" against the country.

The DPRK will join Iran, Sudan and Syria on the list of state sponsors of terror.

US President Donald Trump meets with his cabinet at the White House in Washington, DC, US, November 20, 2017. /Reuters Photo

"In addition to threatening the world by nuclear devastation, North Korea (DPRK) has repeatedly supported acts of international terrorism including assassinations on foreign soil," Trump said during a Cabinet meeting.

US officials cited the killing of DPRK leader Kim Jong Un’s estranged half brother in a Malaysian airport earlier this year as an act of terrorism.

The designation had been debated for months inside the administration, with some officials at the State Department arguing that the DPRK did not meet the legal standard to be relisted as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The move returns the DPRK to the ignominious list for the first time since 2008, when it was removed in a bid to salvage a deal to halt its nuclear development.

DPRK leader Kim Jong Un inspects Sungri Motor Plant, in this undated picture provided by KCNA in Pyongyang on November 21, 2017. /Reuters Photo

The US State Department issued a statement saying, "The DPRK’s State Sponsor of Terrorism designation adds another layer of restriction on US foreign assistance to the DPRK, but due to sanctions already in place doesn’t have any significant new practical effect.”

South Korea and Japan welcomed Trump's decision, saying it would ramp up pressure on Pyongyang to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.

"I welcome and support (the designation) as it raises the pressure on North Korea (DPRK)," Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters on Tuesday, according to Kyodo news agency.

South Korea said it expected the listing to contribute to the peaceful denuclearization of the DPRK, adding it continued, along with the United States, to seek to bring the DRPK to the negotiating table, the country’s foreign ministry said.