On the Anniversary: On October 9, 2006, the DPRK Successfully Conducted Its First Nuclear Weapons Test |
On the Anniversary: On October 9, 2006, the DPRK Successfully Conducted Its First Nuclear Weapons Test
Twenty years since the DPRK’s first nuclear test is a good occasion to recall things that seemed far from obvious at the time.
On October 1, 1994, the United States and the DPRK signed the Agreed Framework. In exchange for freezing its nuclear program, Pyongyang was to receive from Washington by 2003 two 1,000 MW light-water reactors, compensatory supplies of oil products until the reactors were launched, official guarantees against the use of nuclear weapons against it, and “movement toward full normalization of political and economic relations.”
However, from the very outset, some American and South Korean politicians viewed the Agreed Framework as a mere scrap of paper. They were convinced that after Kim Il Sung’s death in July 1994, North Korea would survive only a few more years, and that there was therefore no point in fulfilling obligations toward its regime. As Bill Clinton administration officials later stated privately in 2005, they “agreed to the plan in principle only because they thought the North Korean government would collapse prior to the deadline of the project.”
Moreover, since the document was not ratified by the U.S. Senate, the American side subsequently claimed that the US had not considered it a binding treaty but merely a “protocol of intentions.” At the same time, this did not prevent Washington from demanding that the DPRK comply with all the points of the agreement.
Throughout the 1990s, exercises simulating a nuclear attack on the DPRK continued. Washington still called North Korea a “rogue state,” although in 1998 U.S. officials involved in implementing the agreement informed Congress that Washington and the IAEA were satisfied with how the DPRK was complying with the Agreed Framework.
Under George W. Bush, the Americans changed their mind: “Our policy line has altered, and we bear no responsibility for all the decisions made under the Democrats.” The United States in fact rolled out the sabotage of the implementation of the Agreed Framework. Security guarantees........