Foreign Policy of The Bill Clinton Administration - North Korea

North Korea

North Korea's feared aim to create nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles was a serious problem for the Clinton Administration. In 1994, North Korea, a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, refused to allow international inspectors to review two nuclear waste sites. The inspectors wanted to see if North Korea was in violation of the treaty since they were suspected of reprocessing spent fuel into plutonium, which could be used to manufacture nuclear weapons. Despite diplomatic pressure and repeated warnings by Clinton, North Korea refused to allow the inspections and even raised the prospect of war with South Korea, an ally of the United States.

With private diplomacy by former president Jimmy Carter, the Clinton administration reached a breakthrough with North Korea in October 1994 when North Korea agreed to shut down the nuclear plants that could produce materials for weapons if the United States would help North Korea build plants that generated electricity with light-water nuclear reactors. These reactors would be more efficient and their waste could not easily be used for nuclear weaponry. The United States also agreed to supply fuel oil for electricity until the new plants were built, and North Korea agreed to allow inspection of the old waste sites when construction began on the new plants. This 1994 Agreed Framework, as it was known, kept the Yongbyon plutonium enrichment plant closed and under international inspection until 2002, after which North Korea broke off from the treaty and restarted plutonium production. In October 2006, North Korea tested its first nuclear weapon. President Bush warned that he was not pleased by such actions as it is he invited the international community to take a stand. As a result, North Korea, the United States, Russia, China were involved in negotiations and North Korea agreed to close down their nuclear station temporarily.