North Korean state-run media on Monday reported on Sunday’s tragic mass shooting in Orlando, providing a remarkably toned down report on what it called an “act of terror.”

Written in dry and objective sentences, the state-run Rodong Sinmun and Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) stated that the gay nightclub was attacked by a gunman who is claimed to have ties with the Islamic State.

“The U.S. President Obama condemned this mass shooting as an act of terror,” KCNA wrote Monday, which was shared by Rodong Sinmun’s Tuesday edition.

“Meanwhile, (the) international terror organization Islamic State claimed that ‘the attack on Orlando’s gay nightclub which resulted in 100 dead or injured’ was carried out by their fighter.”

Known for its over-the-top denunciations of the U.S. and its leadership, North Korea’s state media has previously called Obama a “wicked black monkey” and threatened to wipe out Manhattan’s populace with a hydrogen bomb.

But reports by its two main media outlets on the incident, which has actually claimed 49 lives thus far and wounded 53, eschewed such bombast this time, quoting five different organizations – the FBI, a U.S. doctor, Obama, the UN and the Islamic State – for the benefit of its local audience.

“One local (U.S.) doctor said many are gravely injured and said the number of the dead may rise,” wrote the Rodong Sinmun.

“The spokesperson from the FBI announced that the case is under investigation. The UN and others in international society are calling this tragic incident, which took place in Florida, the worst mass shooting in American history.”

A long-time North Korea researcher said that North Korean article was possibly published with the country’s intent to distance itself from being relisted as a state sponsor of terrorism (SSOT).

“If they face such accusations, they often make some verbal gesture after a terrorist attack abroad (condolences, condemnation or so) to show that they are opposed to terrorism,” Balazs Szalontai of Korea University in Seoul told NK News.

Less than a month ago U.S. lawmakers introduced a bill to re-examine whether Pyongyang should be relisted as the an SSOT, the Yonhap News Agency reported. The U.S. de-listed the North in 2008 in exchange for the deactivation of its Yongbyon reactor, but the North has since claimed the reactor is active again, and it is believed to have uranium facilities that can also be used for making nuclear weapons.

“It seems likely that their comments on the shooting were at least partly inspired by the proposed bill,” said Szalontai.

One North Korean source that did not adhere to such objectivity was the internet Maeri outlet, which called the U.S.’s repeated mass shooting incidents the “inevitable result” of its corrupt social system.

“Reports say that this incident will be recorded as the worst gun-terror attack in the U.S. history, exceeding the 32 dead from the mass shooting that took place in Virginia in 2007,” Maeri wrote Tuesday.

“The continuing gun crimes in the U.S. are the inevitable result of a corrupt social system, and the country is turning into a wild dance hall of ‘gun culture.’”

The North’s reaction towards U.S. gun laws is not out of ordinary, as the country last year bashed the U.S.’ 2^nd Amendment as the “corrupt American way” in a KCNA video released last year, part of its “human-hating ideology” which has “turned its people into violent executioners where one may live by killing another.”

The KCNA and Rodong‘s dry use of the Korean term for same-sex relationships (dongseong yeonae) in their stories is also notable.

It is apparently the first time the word has appeared in state media since 2014, when the KCNA lambasted the chair of the UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) on Human Rights in North Korea, Michael Kirby, as a “disgusting old lecher with a 40-odd-year-long career of homosexuality,” NK News previously reported.

Featured image: Shooting at Pulse Nightclub, Orlando Police