SEOUL — North Korea denounced the United States on Sunday for imposing new sanctions on it after a cyberattack on Sony Pictures, calling them byproducts of American hostility toward the North.
North Korea reiterated its denial of involvement in the hacking of Sony and said that Washington’s sanctions would only strengthen its resolve to pursue its “military first” policy. That policy calls for an arms buildup, including nuclear weapons development, as a deterrent against Washington’s policy.
“The persistent and unilateral action taken by the White House to slap sanctions against the DPRK patently proves that it is still not away from inveterate repugnance and hostility toward the DPRK,” an unidentified government spokesman was quoted as saying by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency. DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name.
The statement from the spokesman was the North’s first reaction to the new sanctions the Obama administration announced Friday.
The retaliatory sanctions came days after the United States officially blamed North Korea for the hacking of Sony, which produced “The Interview,” a comedy film about a CIA plot to assassinate Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s leader. The hacking destroyed many of the studio’s computers and leaked numerous private e-mails and business files.
North Korea called the film an “act of war,” but it has repeatedly denied involvement in the hacking. In its statement Sunday, North Korea noted that many cybersecurity experts had expressed skepticism about Washington’s evidence that the country was responsible for the cyberattack.
Dismissing such doubts, Washington on Friday announced sanctions against 10 North Korean government officials and three organizations, including the North’s main intelligence agency and the state-run arms dealers.
US officials said the regime’s intelligence agency was the source of “many of North Korea’s major cyberoperations.”
Analysts said the sanctions would have limited effect because North Korea had already been under tough US sanctions for several decades.
The statement from North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said the new sanctions would not weaken the country’s 1.2-million-strong military.
In announcing the new sanctions, President Obama also warned Pyongyang that the United States was considering whether to put North Korea back on its list of state sponsors of terrorism, which could jeopardize aid to the country on a global scale.
American officials portrayed the sanctions as a swift, decisive response to North Korean behavior that they said had gone far over the line. Never before has the US imposed sanctions on another nation in direct retaliation for a cyberattack on an American company.
There have been doubts in the high-tech field, however, about the extent of North Korea’s involvement. Many analysts have said it’s possible that hackers or even Sony insiders could be the culprits, and questioned how the FBI can point the finger so conclusively.
Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the outgoing chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the sanctions were “a good first step” but didn’t go far enough.
Menendez said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that he had urged Secretary of State John F. Kerry to consider putting North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, “which would have far more pervasive consequences.”