Pyongyang: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has said that sanctions make the country’s national spirit after the US declared Pyongyang a state sponsor of terrorism, a state media report said on Tuesday.
“The hostile forces’ desperate efforts to block the advance of North Korea make the indomitable spirit of the Korean workers stronger and make them produce a great miracle startling the world,” Kim Jong-un said during his visit to the Sungri Motor complex, according to the state news agency KCNA.
As seen in the images and described in the text, the leader personally drove one of the new five-tonne trucks produced at the plant located in Tokchon, about 90 km northeast of Pyongyang, which manufactured the first North Korean truck in 1958, reports Efe news.
Without specifying the date of the visit, KCNA reported that Kim stressed the importance of North Korea being able to manufacture motor vehicles on its own so that the country could “develop the economy and strengthen national power”.
KCNA published the report after US President Donald Trump on Monday announced his decision to re-include North Korea on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
The designation will be accompanied by new sanctions that the US Department of the Treasury plans to issue against North Korea Tuesday.
Most analysts believe that the re-inclusion of North Korea on the list will have only a symbolic effect given the large amount of sanctions the Asian country has already suffered over its repeated weapons tests.
North Korea was withdrawn from the list of state sponsors of terrorism in 2008 to facilitate negotiations regarding its denuclearisation.
