Obama Says He'll Weigh Returning North Korea to Terror List

Honolulu: As the United States moves closer to taking Cuba off the list of state sponsors of terrorism, President Barack Obama said he would "review" whether to return North Korea to the list, part of a broader government response to a damaging cyberattack on Sony's Hollywood studio.

"We have got very clear criteria as to what it means for a state to sponsor terrorism, and we don't make those judgments just based on the news of the day," Obama told CNN in an interview broadcast Sunday. "We look systematically at what's been done."

North Korea was removed from the list six years ago, but it has again prompted the ire of the United States after the FBI said extensive evidence linked the North Korean government to a cyberattack on Sony Pictures.

The hacking of the studio's computers, in response to a screwball comedy called "The Interview," about a plot to assassinate the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, started as the stuff of Hollywood gossip but quickly escalated into an assault on an important industry - and the right to freedom of expression.

In a news conference Friday, Obama said the United States "will respond proportionately," but declined to give details.

Sunday was the second day of Obama's two-week vacation in Hawaii.

"The president is always briefed on appropriate national security matters. Hawaii is no different," said Eric Schultz, a White House spokesman. He added, "We're not going to release any details on our internal briefing process."

Obama expressed sympathy for Sony, but he told Candy Crowley of CNN that he did not consider the cyberattack to be an act of war. The studio decided to cancel its December premiere of "The Interview" after hackers' threatened attacks on theaters if they showed the comedy.

"I think it was an act of cybervandalism that was very costly, very expensive," Obama said. "We take it very seriously."

The North Korean government has insisted it was not involved in the attack and in a message on the state-run news service Pyongyang warned of "serious consequences" if the United States retaliated.
Republicans pushed back at Obama's characterization of the attack as only cybervandalism.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told CNN that the president "does not understand that this is a new - this is a manifestation of a new form of warfare," and he proposed reimposing sanctions that were lifted during the Bush administration.

The tension with the North Korean government has escalated as Obama has moved toward normalizing relations with Cuba.

"For 50 years we've tried to see if we can overthrow the regime through isolation," Obama told CNN. "It hasn't worked."

He declined to say whether Cuba would be removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, but when Crowley pointed out that it would be difficult for Washington to have a relationship with Havana were it still on the list, Obama replied: "I think so."