North Korea Timeline to Nuclear Bomb

From Wall Street Journal October 10, 2006

Scare Tactics
In its pursuit of nuclear weapons

1993: Drops out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty

1994: Agrees to dismantle its weapons program to comply with treaty in exchange for help building two nuclear power plants

1998: Fires missile over Japan

January 2003: Drops out of treaty again

August: Begins talks with U.S. and others

February 2005: Suspends talks and declares it possesses nuclear weapons

September: Agrees to end building nuclear weapons and allow inspections in exchange for aid and security assurances

January 2006: Says it won’t hold talks unless U.S. lifts financial restrictions imposed due to counterfeiting U.S. dollars

July: Tests long-range missiles

October 9: Claims it successfully tested a nuclear weapon

Commentary:
So the Clinton administration held one-on-one talks with North Korea and got them in 1994 to “Agrees to dismantle its weapons program to comply with treaty in exchange for help building two nuclear power plants”

Unfortunately, North Korea promptly cheated and did not keep their word.

And the Bush administration through the six-party talks (including China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea) also got an agreement. In September 2005, North Korea “Agrees to end building nuclear weapons and allow inspections in exchange for aid and security assurances”.

However, North Korea had a very large and sophisticated counterfeiting operation of United States currency. So the North Koreans, once again, reneged on their agreement. In January 2006: “Says it won’t hold talks unless U.S. lifts financial restrictions imposed due to counterfeiting U.S. dollars”.

From my analysis, the problem is not whether we talk one-on-one or along with four allies. The problem is that North Korea will not keep their agreements, which, by the way, includes the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty which does not allow withdrawal.