2008 Woodie Awards
Years of bad policy provide Korea with chance to change
Christopher Seth Flory, Guest Writer
Issue date: 10/24/06
Last Updated: 12/26/07
If seismic and atmospheric tests prove credible, North Korea has recently chartered membership into the club of nuclear armed nations. This, by popular standards, is a very undesirable reality. Unfortunately, following 10 years of disengagement, the power to mediate the situation is almost entirely out of U.S. hands.
Following signs that North Korea was preparing to withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, President Jimmy Carter, in 1994, traveled at the behest of the Clinton administration to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Carter took this opportunity to broker the Agreed Framework, an executive promise to supply North Korea with light water reactors and petroleum on the guarantee that North Korea would abandon its nuclear program. With the OK of President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the Framework was signed on Oct. 21, 1994.
In the following years, both Albright and South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung made visits to the DPRK, in the vein of positive engagement with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Unfortunately for Korean-U.S. relations, 1996 saw the control of Congress shift to the Republican Party. The new majority called the framework an act of "appeasement" and responded by delaying the funds needed to uphold the U.S. end of the agreement. Oil shipments were made late and under quota, while the construction of the light water reactors was never allowed to begin.
With the election of President George W. Bush, the Agreed Framework effectively dissolved. The administration declared the document invalid and by December 2002, oil shipments to North Korea ended. Having lost all incentives, North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty on Jan. 10, 2003. Bush, having offended the sensitive North Korean government with his January 2002 Axis of Evil declaration, was in no place to negotiate with Kim Jong Il. In fact, the administration refused to talk with North Korea directly and fought for six-party talks with the country. The administration was unwilling to break from its hardliner position long enough to make any concessions, and the multi-lateral negotiations broke down. North Korea withdrew from the talks and, in February of 2005, announced that it had manufactured nuclear weapons.
Following signs that North Korea was preparing to withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, President Jimmy Carter, in 1994, traveled at the behest of the Clinton administration to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Carter took this opportunity to broker the Agreed Framework, an executive promise to supply North Korea with light water reactors and petroleum on the guarantee that North Korea would abandon its nuclear program. With the OK of President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the Framework was signed on Oct. 21, 1994.
In the following years, both Albright and South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung made visits to the DPRK, in the vein of positive engagement with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Unfortunately for Korean-U.S. relations, 1996 saw the control of Congress shift to the Republican Party. The new majority called the framework an act of "appeasement" and responded by delaying the funds needed to uphold the U.S. end of the agreement. Oil shipments were made late and under quota, while the construction of the light water reactors was never allowed to begin.
With the election of President George W. Bush, the Agreed Framework effectively dissolved. The administration declared the document invalid and by December 2002, oil shipments to North Korea ended. Having lost all incentives, North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty on Jan. 10, 2003. Bush, having offended the sensitive North Korean government with his January 2002 Axis of Evil declaration, was in no place to negotiate with Kim Jong Il. In fact, the administration refused to talk with North Korea directly and fought for six-party talks with the country. The administration was unwilling to break from its hardliner position long enough to make any concessions, and the multi-lateral negotiations broke down. North Korea withdrew from the talks and, in February of 2005, announced that it had manufactured nuclear weapons.
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