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The North Korean Nuclear Crisis

Paul Leventhal * and Steven Dolley **

At the time of publication, *PL was the president and **SD
the research director of the Nuclear Control Institute, a
public-interest group concerned with nuclear proliferation.

© Copyright 1994 Medicine and Global Survival

Abstract
The confrontation between North Korea (Democratic Peoples
Republic of Korea) and the International Atomic Energy
Agency over North Korea's nuclear program presents a
serious risk of war in Northeast Asia and poses an
unprecedented test for the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty
and the IAEA's system of inspections and audits called
"safeguards." By withdrawing from the NPT and then
suspending its withdrawal at the urging of the U.S., North
Korea is claiming a "special status" that gives it the
right to nuclear technology enjoyed by treaty parties, but
not the obligation to open all its nuclear activities to
IAEA inspectors. The crisis raises a number of important
issues, including the effectiveness and enforceability of
the NPT and IAEA safeguards, the proliferation risks of
civilian use of weapon-usable nuclear materials (plutonium
and highly enriched uranium), destabilizing interactions
among nuclear programs using these materials in Northeast
Asia, and potential consequences of conventional attacks on
nuclear plants in North and South Korea that could amount
to nuclear war conducted by conventional means. [M&GS
1994;1:164-175]

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Introduction: Evolution of the Crisis

The nuclear research program of the Democratic Peoples
Republic of Korea (DPRK) dates back to the 1950s, when the
Korean government entered into nuclear cooperation
agreements with the Soviet Union and China. In the
mid-1960s, the DPRK received a small research reactor and
critical assembly (a research tool used to sustain and
study nuclear chain reactions) from the Soviet Union. At
that time the DPRK was not a member of the
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In 1977, the reactor and
critical assembly were placed under limited,
facility-specific International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
safeguards that are applied to some imported nuclear
facilities in non-NPT nations.

In the early 1980s, at Yongbyon, the DPRK constructed a 5
megawatt-electric (MWe), gas cooled, graphite moderated
nuclear reactor, a clone of Great Britain's first reactor
at Calder Hall that produced plutonium for Great Britain's
nuclear weapons program. Fueled with natural uranium, the
DPRK's reactor became operational in 1986 (see Figure 1,
Table 1). Upon discovering that the DPRK was building this
reactor, the U.S. pressured the Soviet Union to urge the
DPRK to join the NPT. The DPRK joined the NPT in December
1985, perhaps persuaded by a Soviet offer of nuclear power
reactors. These reactors were never constructed [1].

1987 NPT Violation Ignored

The NPT requires a member state to conclude a safeguards
agreement with the IAEA within 18 months of becoming a
party to the treaty. These safeguards agreements permit
inspections of all plants containing fissile materials. The
DPRK notified the IAEA 18 months after signing the NPT that
it had been sent the wrong paperwork for the safeguards
agreement -- that is, it received the form to be filled out
for non-NPT safeguards rather than NPT safeguards. The IAEA
responded by sending the DPRK the correct form and by
giving the North Koreans another 18 months to complete it.
Apparently under Chinese and Soviet pressure, neither the
IAEA nor the Reagan or Bush administrations raised the
matter of this clear violation of NPT obligations. Nor did
they bring pressure on the DPRK to complete its inspections
arrangement with the IAEA [2]. As a consequence, in 1989
the DPRK was able to shut down its 5 megawatt reactor at
Yongbyon for about three months with no IAEA inspectors
present. It is suspected of having then removed fuel
containing enough plutonium for one or two bombs for its
nuclear-weapons program. The DPRK did not enter into an NPT
safeguards agreement with the IAEA until 1992, more than
six years after joining the treaty.

In December 1991, North and South Korea signed a bilateral
agreement prohibiting nuclear weapons, as well as uranium
enrichment and plutonium reprocessing facilities, from the
Korean peninsula. A month earlier, U.S. Secretary of State
James Baker had urged that there be an agreement
prohibiting acquisition of any weapons-usable nuclear
materials (plutonium and highly-enriched uranium), as well
as construction of facilities to produce them. But the
materials-acquisition element was not included in the final
bilateral agreement. This agreement is still not in effect,
because negotiations on its implementation and verification
became entangled with broader talks on North-South Korean
relations and possible reunification, which remain dead
locked.

The DPRK finally concluded its NPT safeguards agreement
with the IAEA in early January 1992. That June the first
inspections under this agreement commenced. At this time
the DPRK admitted that it was constructing a large
reprocessing plant, which it called a radiochemical
laboratory, at Yongbyon, near its reactors. This plant was
reportedly first detected by U.S. intelligence satellites
in late 1988 or early 1989 [3]. Reprocessing chemically
separates plutonium, a weapons-usable fissile material,
from uranium and from fission products in spent nuclear
reactor fuel.

The DPRK declared that it had removed a number of damaged
fuel rods from its gas graphite reactor when it was shut
down for about 100 days in 1989, and that these rods had
been reprocessed in March 1990 to separate small amounts
(gram quantities) of plutonium, samples of which were
provided to the IAEA for analysis. The DPRK also admitted
that in 1975, using Soviet-supplied "hot cells"
(laboratory-scale reprocessing units), it had separated
minute amounts of plutonium from uranium irradiated in its
research reactor.

Plutonium Diversions Suspected

In July 1992, the IAEA analyzed samples of separated
plutonium provided by the DPRK, as well as samples of
radioactive materials from the North Korean hot cells.
Based on differing amounts of the radioactive isotope
americium-241 (a decay product of plutonium) in the
samples, the IAEA concluded that the DPRK must have
reprocessed on at least three separate occasions in 1989,
1990, and 1991. The DPRK denied this charge [4].

In February 1993, during its sixth visit to the DPRK, the
IAEA was refused permission to inspect two sites at the
Yongbyon facility that inspectors had visited briefly in
September 1992 and that were believed, reportedly on the
basis of satellite photos provided by U.S. intelligence, to
contain reprocessing waste not declared by the DPRK [5].
The DPRK denied that the sites contained nuclear waste and
refused to permit inspection of the facilities on the
grounds that they were military sites not related to the
nuclear program. The IAEA was not satisfied with this
explanation. On February 25, the IAEA Board of Governors
formally demanded that the DPRK permit a "special
inspection" -- that is, a visit to a site where the
presence of undeclared or diverted fissile material is
suspected.

In response, the DPRK announced on March 12 that it was
withdrawing from the NPT, and gave three months notice as
required by the treaty. The U.S. led a strenuous diplomatic
effort to keep the DPRK in the treaty. On June 11, one day
before the three-month notice period ended, the DPRK
announced that it would "suspend" its withdrawal from the
NPT "for as long as is necessary." The DPRK still refused,
however, to permit special inspections of the suspected
nuclear waste sites.

Throughout the summer of 1993 bilateral talks continued
between the U.S. and the DPRK, and between North and South
Korea, to attempt to resolve the inspection impasse. At one
point, the DPRK indicated its willingness to abandon
reprocessing and plutonium if the U.S. provided it with
light water reactors, a technology somewhat more
proliferation-resistant than the gas-graphite reactors.
[Ed. note: At press time, the U.S. government announced it
had reached just such a bilateral agreement with North
Korea.]

The talks failed to make major progress. The U.S. insisted
that the nuclear impasse be resolved prior to discussion of
the broader U.S.-North Korea relationship. The DPRK
demanded that nuclear questions be dealt with
simultaneously, as one part of an overall "package deal"
involving its demands for a permanent suspension of annual
"Team Spirit" military exercises by the U.S. and South
Korea and for formal diplomatic relations with the United
States. Talks between the IAEA and the DPRK also continued
without progress.

In early March 1994, an IAEA inspection team visited the
DPRK, but was not permitted to take samples or
radioactivity measurements from crucial portions of the
Yongbyon reprocessing plant. These steps were needed to
determine whether reprocessing had taken place since the
last full inspection more than a year earlier (the DPRK
claimed that it had not). Some seals also showed signs of
tampering. In addition, the inspectors found evidence, but
were unable to confirm, that the DPRK had begun
construction of a second, undeclared reprocessing line at
the facility near Yongbyon, potentially doubling its
plutonium-separation capacity. As a result, the IAEA
Secretariat informed the Board of Governors on March 16
that it could not verify non-diversion.

The U.S. threatened to call for UN Security Council
approval of economic sanctions if the DPRK continued to
resist inspections. The DPRK responded by accusing the U.S.
of driving the situation to the brink of war, and warned
that Seoul would be rendered "a sea of fire" if hostilities
broke out. On March 31 the UN Security Council called upon
the DPRK to permit full inspections. The call took the form
of a non-binding appeal, rather than a resolution, for fear
that China would veto stronger action. The DPRK rejected
the appeal and said it would resume certain unspecified
"peaceful nuclear activities" that it had suspended. IAEA
inspectors were eventually allowed to return to Yongbyon
and complete the inspection.

Defueling of Yongbyon Reactor Begins

On May 12, the DPRK announced it had begun defueling its 5
MWe reactor at Yongbyon, despite the fact that IAEA
inspectors were still en route and not present to witness
the procedure. On June 3 IAEA Director General Hans Blix
announced that the DPRK had defueled so much of the reactor
that it was no longer possible for inspectors to acquire
the data they needed to determine the reactor's operating
and fueling history. On June 8, the DPRK hinted it might
agree to full inspections if the U.S. resumed negotiations.
The U.S. rejected this offer and the State Department
claimed that the DPRK had "crossed the point of no return"
by unloading almost all the fuel from its gas-graphite
reactor, thereby destroying evidence needed for the IAEA to
deter mine how much plutonium-bearing fuel was unloaded in
1989.

On June 17 and 18, former President Jimmy Carter met with
Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang to discuss the nuclear crisis.
Carter stressed that he was traveling as a private citizen
and did not represent the U.S. government, but still
managed to extract an offer from Kim Il Sung to defer
reprocessing and refueling of the 5 MWe reactor, in
exchange for U.S. postponement of its campaign to impose
sanctions on the DPRK and for renewal of bilateral talks
with the United States. Though distressed by Carter's
statement that the U.S. had already agreed to postpone
sanctions, the Clinton administration's overall reaction to
this offer was favor able and bilateral talks resumed in
Geneva on July 8.

On the same day, the DPRK announced that Kim Il Sung had
died of a heart attack. His successor, expected to be his
son Kim Jong Il, was not immediately announced, prompting
Western fears of a destabilizing crisis over succession and
a possible military coup. As of this writing, these fears
have not materialized, and Kim Jong Il appears to be the
DPRK's next leader. Bilateral talks were suspended for Kim
Il Sung's funeral and the DPRK's period of mourning, but
resumed in Geneva the first week of August.
