Another day, another Sony development. North Korea is now claiming that it had nothing to do with the Sony Pictures attacks, which led to cringe-worthy email leaks and the cancellation of Seth Rogen and James Franco's upcoming comedy The Interview. An unidentified Foreign Ministry spokesman says the country can prove its innocence, but the U.S. must also accept a joint probe investigation into the scandal.
"The 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," the spokesman said in a statement on Saturday, Dec. 20, via the Associated Press. "We have a way to prove that we have nothing to do with the case without resorting to torture, as the CIA does."
The admission was made one day after the FBI confirmed that North Korea was behind the Nov. 24 attacks against Sony. Friday night, President Barack Obama also said it was a "mistake" to dismiss the movie, which is about assassinating North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
"I wish Sony had spoken to me first," Obama said in a briefing at the White House. "If somebody is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they start doing when they see a documentary that they don't like, or news reports that they don't like. That’s not who we are. That's not what America's about."
The White House has yet to comment on North Korea's proposal. According to AP, analysts find the proposition to be just a ploy, knowing that the U.S. would never agree to a joint investigation. Koh Yu-hwan, a Seoul's Dongguk University professor, also said that it is a tactic North Korea has used before with other rival countries.