North Korea has denounced calls by some U.S. Republican lawmakers that it should be redesignated as a state sponsor of terrorism.
 
In an interview with the North's Korean Central News Agency on Thursday, Pyongyang's foreign ministry spokesperson said such talk was simply complaining by those bent on being hostile against the North.
 
The spokesperson said as long as the United States continues to engage in antagonistic policies against Pyongyang, the North’s nuclear deterrence will develop at an unbelievable speed.
 
The spokesperson added that a Republican administration removed the North from its terrorism sponsor list in 2008 not out of kindness, but in accordance with its own standards and interests.
 
Republican Rep. Ted Poe, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade, said last month that the U.S. Department of State should redesignate the North as a state sponsor of terrorism.
 
Washington placed the North on its State Sponsors of Terrorism list in 1987 for the bombing of Korean Air Flight 858, but the George W. Bush administration removed it in November 2008 for meeting nuclear inspection requirements.