Denuclearization: Easier said than done
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — Bill Clinton offered oil and reactors. George W. Bush mixed threats and aid. Barack Obama stopped trying after a rocket launch.
While Seoul and Washington welcomed Pyongyang’s declaration on Saturday to suspend further intercontinental ballistic missile tests and shut down its nuclear test site, the past is littered with failure.
A decades-long cycle of crises, stalemates and broken promises gave North Korea the room to build up a legitimate arsenal that now includes purported thermonuclear warheads and developmental ICBMs. The North’s latest announcement stopped well short of suggesting it has any intention of giving that up.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday to kick off a new round of high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with Pyongyang. The inter-Korean summit could set up more substantial discussions between Kim and President Donald Trump, who said he plans to meet the dictator he previously called “Little Rocket Man” in May or June.
A look at previous negotiations with North Korea and how the currently planned summits took shape:
1994
The Clinton administration in October 1994 reached a major nuclear agreement with Pyongyang, ending months of war fears triggered by North Korea’s threat to withdraw from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and convert its stockpile of nuclear fuel into bombs.
Under the “Agreed Framework,” North Korea halted construction of two reactors the United States believed were for nuclear weapons production in return for two alternative nuclear power reactors that could be used to provide electricity but not bomb fuel, and 500,000 metric tons of fuel oil annually for the North.
The deal was tested quickly. North Korea complained about delayed oil shipments and construction of the reactors, which were never delivered. The United States criticized the North’s pursuit of ballistic missile capability, demonstrated in the launch of a twostage rocket over Japan in 1998.
2005
Responding to Washington’s toughened stance, North Korea announced in 2003 that it obtained a nuclear device and would withdraw from the Nonproliferation Treaty.
This brought the United States back to the negotiating table with the North, and six-party talks also involving South Korea, China, Japan and Russia began in Beijing in August 2003.
After months of fiery negotiations, North Korea accepted a deal in September 2005 to end its nuclear weapons program in exchange for security, economic and energy benefits.
Disagreements between Washington and Pyongyang temporarily derailed the six-nation talks. In October 2006, the North went on to conduct its first nuclear test.
2007
North Korea agreed to resume the six-nation disarmament talks a few weeks after the nuclear test. In February 2007, the United States and the four other countries reached an agreement to provide North Korea with an aid package worth about $400 million in return for the North disabling its nuclear facilities.
North Korea demolished the cooling tower at its Nyongbyon reactor site in June 2008. But in September, the North declared that it would resume reprocessing plutonium, complaining that Washington wasn’t fulfilling its promise to remove the country from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.
The Bush administration removed North Korea from the list in October 2008 after the country agreed to continue disabling its nuclear plant. However, a final attempt by Bush to complete an agreement collapsed in December when the North refused to accept U.S. proposed verification methods.
The North conducted its second nuclear test in May 2009, months after Obama took office.
2012
Months after taking power following the death of his father, current North Korean leader Kim reached a deal with the Obama administration in February 2012 to suspend tests and to also allow international inspectors to monitor its nuclear activities in exchange for U.S. food aid.