N. Korea, USA: Trail of broken promises
Kim-Trump summit threat is just the latest
North Korea’s threat Wednesday to cancel a planned summit between Kim Jong Un and President Trump if the United States insists on the North giving up its nukes is the latest in a long list of broken promises between the two countries.
The statement came a day after North Korea canceled a high-level meeting with South Korean diplomats over planned U.S.-South
Korea military drills.
The new rift follows last month’s optimistic summit between the rival Koreas where South Korean President Moon Jae-in said the North would not object to the planned exercises.
“North Korea has, on multiple occasions, offered concessions to
U.S. and South Korean interests, only to renege on them with embarrassing haste,” Tan wrote in The Strategy
Bridge, an online military journal.
Here’s a list of commitments by North Korea, and some by the U.S., that were made, retracted and revived:
1985: North Korea signed the NonProliferation Treaty (NPT), pledging not to obtain nuclear weapons. But the North did not complete a safeguards agreement with the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
1992: North and South Korea agreed to the Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.Both countries agreed to mutual inspections, but in 1993 the North, presented with evidence it was cheating, refused an inspection request by the IAEA and announced it would pull out of the NPT.
1994: North Korea again committed to implement the Joint Declaration, including inspections. The United States promised to supply two nuclear reactors for energy, and to normalize economic and diplomatic relations, none of which ever happened. The U.S. also agreed to organize other energy assistance for the North, which it did.
1999: North Korea agreed to a moratorium on testing long-range missiles for the duration of talks with the United States. The U.S. agreed to a partial lifting of economic sanctions. Sanc-
tions were lifted in June 2000, but new sanctions were also imposed in January over North Korea’s transfer of ballistic missiles and missile technology to Iran and Pakistan.
2000: Kim Jong Il tells Russia’s President Vladimir Putin “we would stop developing rockets when the United States comes forward and launches our satellites.” The State Department said it took the offer “very seriously,” and U.S.North Korea talks discussed removing the North from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. That idea was nixed after al-Qaida terrorists targeted the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001. In 2002, President George W. Bush listed North Korea with Iraq and Iran in his “Axis of Evil” speech.
2003: North Korea pulled out of the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons
2005: The North committed again to abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and to return to the NPT and to allow IAEA inspections. The North and the United States again agreed to take steps to normalize relations, and for the U.S. to provide energy assistance and begin the process of removing the North from its terror list. The U.S. provided the energy assistance it promised by 2008, but the other two goals have yet to happen. The next year, on Oct. 9, 2006, North Korea conducted an underground test of its first nuclear weapon.
2009: North Korea said it had “already weaponized” its nuclear fuel. Responding to the latest round of U.N. sanctions over its ongoing missile program, the North pulls out of the Six Party Talks with the U.S., China, Russia, Japan and South Korea, and said it “will no longer be bound” by any agreements reached.
2012: North Korea discussed denuclearization