U.S. Slaps Sanctions on North Korea Over Use of Nerve Agent in Assassination

North Korea ordered the assassination last year of its leader’s estranged half brother with a banned nerve agent, an act that has caused the United States to impose new sanctions on the country, the State Department said Tuesday.

The announcement by the State Department came on the same day that South Korean officials said the North was willing to talk with the United States about ending the crisis over its missiles and nuclear arsenal.

Kim Jong Nam, the half brother of Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s leader, was killed Feb. 13, 2017, with VX, a deadly nerve agent used in prohibited chemical weapons of mass destruction that North Korea is known to have stockpiled.

Kim Jong Nam, who had criticized the dynastic succession in North Korea but had professed no interest in politics, was ambushed at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia by two women who smeared his face with VX. The women were arrested.

South Korean and U.S. intelligence officials have long contended that North Korea ordered the killing. North Korea has denied the accusation.

The State Department announcement said that the United States had formally determined on Feb. 22 that North Korea was responsible and that the sanctions took effect on Monday. Under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991, the finding added to existing U.S. sanctions “targeting unlawful North Korean activities,” the department spokeswoman, Heather Nauert, said in the statement.

“The United States strongly condemns the use of chemical weapons to conduct an assassination,” Nauert said. “This public display of contempt for universal norms against chemical weapons use further demonstrates the reckless nature of North Korea and underscores that we cannot afford to tolerate a North Korean WMD program of any kind.”

The two defendants, Doan Thi Huong, a 29-year-old Vietnamese citizen, and Siti Aisyah, 25, of Indonesia, have pleaded not guilty in the killing of the half brother, who had been returning home to Macau and was traveling on a passport in the name of Kim Chol.

Currently on trial in Malaysia, the defendants say they were duped into carrying out the attack and thought it was a prank.