The Sunday News
North Korea has proposed a joint investigation with the US into the hacking attack against Sony Pictures Entertainment, warning of “serious” consequences if Washington does not co-operate.
The call for a new investigation came a day after the Federal Bureau of Investigation said it had evidence Pyongyang was responsible for the attack, prompting President Barack Obama to declare that the United States would respond “proportionately” to the cyber attack.
Yesterday, an unidentified Foreign Ministry spokesman in the capital Pyongyang said North Korea was able to prove it was not responsible for the hacking, and urged the United States must accept its proposal for the joint investigation.
“The US should bear in mind that it will face serious consequences in case it rejects our proposal for (a) joint investigation and presses for what it called counter measures while finding fault with North Korea,” the spokesman said in a statement carried by Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency.
“We have a way to prove that we have nothing to do with the case without resorting to torture, as what the CIA does,” he said.
US 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 a response.
“We will respond. We will respond proportionately and we’ll respond in a place and time and manner that we choose,” Obama told an end-of-year news conference at the White House on Friday.
The break-in resulted in the disclosure of tens of thousands of confidential Sony emails and business files, and escalated to terrorist threats that caused Sony to cancel the Christmas release of the movie “The Interview”. The comedy is about a plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Obama declared that Sony “made a mistake” in shelving the satirical film and pledged the US would respond “in a place and manner and time that we choose”.
North Korea said on Friday it had nothing to do with the devastating attack, according to its UN diplomat.
“DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) is not part of this,” the diplomat, cited by the Reuters news agency and speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Friday. He declined to comment further. – Aljazeera
