North Korea Nuclear Program

North Korea Nuclear Program

Introduction

The nuclear crisis with North Korea is the second in less than a decade. The first crisis occurred in 1993-1994 when, faced with international suspicions that it had more than the declared plutonium, Pyongyang rejected a proposed inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, with whom he had signed a safeguards agreement in 1992, and threatened to leave the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which it acceded in 1985, and to continue with its nuclear program plutonium reprocessing. That crisis was resolved with the signing of the framework agreement, 1994 with the U.S. Under that agreement, North Korea agreed to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for the gradual lifting of U.S. economic sanctions, as well as the construction of two light water nuclear reactors and receiving half a million tons of oil annually until the first reactor was finished. The construction of the reactors and oil shipments were entrusted to an international consortium created in 1995 and called KEDO (Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization), formed by 13 countries but mainly funded by Washington, Seoul and Tokyo (NY Times, 2013).

From late 1994 until October 2002 it appeared that North Korea had fulfilled its commitments. Between 1994 and 2000, the Clinton Administration's attention focused on a second problem with North Korea: program development and export of missiles and missile components or technology. The development of successive generations of missiles (Scud-B, Scud-C, No Dong, Taepo Dong 1, Taepo Dong 2) began to pose a serious problem when, in August 1998, North Korea tested one of them (a Taepo Dong 1, three phases), with a shot that flew over Japan. He was also well known that North Korea was exporting missiles, their components or their technology to several countries, like Pakistan, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iran and Yemen. The Clinton Administration did not have time to close a deal on it before the 2000 U.S. elections (although Secretary of State Madeleine Albright came to travel to Pyongyang in October of that year) but got in 1999 a moratorium on missile tests. That deal would have been to cancel the development and export of missiles in exchange for financial compensation and free access to the North Korean Foreign Service satellite launch (Washington Post, 2011). Since 2001, and despite the skepticism of the new Republican administration in Washington, it appeared that the North Korean nuclear program was frozen. Secretary of State Colin Powell said in February 2002 that North Koreans were "complying with the moratorium [of missile tests] that had been imposed and maintained under the KEDO agreement". In March, President Bush continued U.S. funding KEDO program.

Discussion

Development of the crisis 

Things changed substantially when Washington made ??public on 16 October 2002 that North Korea had admitted on October 4, during a meeting in Pyongyang between James A. Kelly, U.S. assistant secretary for East Asian Affairs and the Pacific, and Kang Sok Chu, North Korean Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, which was developing a secret nuclear program of uranium enrichment. This program was a clear violation of the NPT and of several international agreements signed by North Korea: South ...