{"id":36124,"date":"2014-12-22T04:15:05","date_gmt":"2014-12-21T20:15:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=36124"},"modified":"2014-12-22T00:55:33","modified_gmt":"2014-12-21T16:55:33","slug":"north-korea-wants-joint-investigation-with-us-over-sony-hacking-to-prove-its-not-involved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/12\/22\/north-korea-wants-joint-investigation-with-us-over-sony-hacking-to-prove-its-not-involved\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korea wants joint investigation with US over Sony hacking to prove it\u2019s not involved"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The controversial film featured a scene showing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un dying. Screenshot from Youtube.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SEOUL, South Korea\u2014North Korea on Saturday proposed a joint investigation with the U.S. into the hacking attack against Sony Pictures Entertainment, warning of \u201cserious\u201d consequences if Washington rejects a probe that it believes would prove Pyongyang had nothing to do with the cyberattack.<\/p>\n

The proposal was seen by analysts as a typical ploy by the North to try to show that it is sincere, even though it knows the U.S. would never accept its offer for a joint investigation.<\/p>\n

U.S. officials blame North Korea for the hacking, citing the tools used in the Sony attack and previous hacks linked to the North, and have vowed to respond. The break-in resulted in the disclosure of tens of thousands of confidential Sony emails and business files, and escalated to threats of terror attacks against U.S. movie theatres that caused Sony to cancel the Christmas Day release of \u201cThe Interview,\u201d a comedy about a plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, an unidentified North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman in Pyongyang proposed the joint investigation with the U.S., saying the North knows how to prove it\u2019s not responsible for the hacking. He also said Washington was slandering Pyongyang by spreading unfounded rumours.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe U.S. should bear in mind that it will face serious consequences in case it rejects our proposal for joint investigation and presses for what it called countermeasures while finding fault with\u201d North Korea, the spokesman said in a statement carried by Pyongyang\u2019s official Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a way to prove that we have nothing to do with the case without resorting to torture, as the CIA does,\u201d he said, adding that the U.S. lacks any specific evidence tying North Korea to the hacking.<\/p>\n

In Washington, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, Mark Stroh, said the U.S. stands by the FBI\u2019s conclusion that \u201cthe North Korean government is responsible for this destructive attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government of North Korea has a long history of denying responsibility for destructive and provocative actions,\u201d Stroh said. \u201cIf the North Korean government wants to help, they can admit their culpability and compensate Sony for the damages this attack caused.\u201d<\/p>\n

Koh Yu-hwan, a professor at Seoul\u2019s Dongguk University, called the North\u2019s proposal a \u201ctypical\u201d tactic the country has taken in similar disputes with rival countries. In 2010, North Korea proposed a joint investigation after a South Korean-led international team concluded that the North was behind a torpedo attack that killed 46 South Korean sailors, though Pyongyang denied its involvement. South Korea rejected the North\u2019s offer for the joint probe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are now talking about a joint investigation because they think there is no conclusive evidence,\u201d Koh said. \u201cBut the U.S. won\u2019t accede to a joint investigation for the crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Friday, President Barack Obama declared that Sony \u201cmade a mistake\u201d in shelving the satirical film about a plot to assassinate the North Korean leader, and pledged that the U.S. would respond \u201cin a place and manner and time that we choose\u201d to the hacking attack on Sony that led to the movie\u2019s withdrawal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish they had spoken to me first. … We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship,\u201d Obama said at a year-end news conference, speaking of executives at Sony Pictures Entertainment.<\/p>\n

Sony said it had had no choice but to cancel distribution of the movie because theatres were refusing to show it.<\/p>\n

U.S. options for acting against North Korea are limited. The U.S. already has severe trade sanctions in place, and there is no appetite for military action. Even if investigators could identify and prosecute the individual hackers believed responsible, there\u2019s no guarantee that any located are overseas would ever see a U.S. courtroom. Hacking back at North Korean targets by U.S. government experts could encourage further attacks against American targets.<\/p>\n

North Korea and the U.S. remain in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. The rivals also are locked in an international standoff over the North\u2019s nuclear and missile programs and its alleged human rights abuses.<\/p>\n

Earlier Saturday, North Korea angrily denounced a move by the United Nations to bring its human rights record before the Security Council and renewed its threat to further bolster its nuclear deterrent against what it called a hostile policy by the U.S. to topple its ruling regime.<\/p>\n

Pyongyang \u201cvehemently and categorically rejects\u201d the resolution passed by the U.N. General Assembly that could open the door for its leaders, including Kim Jong Un, to be hauled before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, according to a Foreign Ministry statement carried by KCNA.<\/p>\n

The Security Council is due to meet Monday to discuss Pyongyang\u2019s human rights situation for the first time.<\/p>\n

The meeting caps almost a year of international pressure, and even though ally China could use its veto power to block any action against the North, the nonbinding resolution has broad support in the General Assembly and has drawn unusually strong and vitriolic protests from Pyongyang.<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Eric Talmadge in Tokyo contributed to this report. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SEOUL, South Korea\u2014North Korea on Saturday proposed a joint investigation with the U.S. into the hacking attack against Sony Pictures …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":36075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news-w","mauthors-hyung-jin-kim","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}