"North Korea will not be accepted as a nuclear power," the secretary of state said Friday in Seoul.

The White House sought to soothe concerns over North Korea's nuclear capabilities Friday.

Iran's Mujahedin-e Khalq was removed from the State Department's terrorism list last year.

Japan's entry into the Trans-Pacific Partnership has been in the works for more than a year.

Russia warned that publishing of a list of alleged Russian human-rights abusers would be a “serious blow” to U.S.-Russian relations.

The United States and Guatemala have agreed on a robust plan to resolve labor law enforcement concerns. 

Acting U.S. Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis and Acting Secretary of Labor Seth Harris announced on Thursday an 18-point plan that includes specific actions with time frames that Guatemala will implement within six months to improve labor law enforcement. 

The labor case is the first that the United States has brought to dispute settlement under a trade agreement, the Dominican Republic-Central America-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR). 

"This landmark agreement with Guatemala demonstrates that, by using the tools in our trade agreements, we can achieve tangible and concrete commitments that will improve the daily lives of workers in Guatemala and ensure a level playing field for American workers upon its implementation,” Marantis said.   

Five lawmakers on Thursday congratulated the National Council of Resistance of Iran for reopening a Washington office 11 years after the State Department shut it, claiming the group was a front for a terrorist organization.

The council is an umbrella group of five Iranian opposition groups, the largest of which is the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), a group accused of targeting U.S. business interests under the Shah in the 1970s. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton removed the group from the State Department's terror list in September after a multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign.

“The United States never should have listed the PMOI/MEK in 1999 as a Foreign Terrorist Organization or subsequently shut down the D.C. office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran in 2003,” they wrote in a letter to council President-elect Maryam Rajavi. “Both were actions taken at the behest of the Iranian government.

The Obama administration said Iran was laundering billions of dollars through small banks to counteract sanctions.

America's top Catholic body on Thursday urged the Obama administration to sign the United Nations arms trade treaty.

“In light of the position of the Holy See, I urge the Administration to expedite a thorough review of the Treaty so that the President can sign it in early June,” Des Moines Bishop Richard Pates, the chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops's Committee on International Justice and Peace, wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry. “As a world leader and a major arms exporter, our nation should set a positive example for other nations to follow in efforts to reduce the flow of weapons into situations that violate human rights and cause terrible suffering.”

The treaty cleared the General Assembly on a vote of 154-3 last week, with rogue states North Korea, Iran and Syria voting against. The treaty is opposed by the National Rifle Association and a majority of senators, who are concerned it could harm Americans' right to bear arms.