Timeline of North Korea Nuclear Program - Phase III - 2002

2002

• 29 January: U.S. President George W. Bush in his State of the Union Address named North Korea as part of the axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world and posing a grave danger.

• 7 August: "First Concrete" pouring at the construction site of the light-water nuclear power plants being built by the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization under the 1994 Agreed Framework. Construction of both reactors was many years behind the agreement's target completion date of 2003.

• 17 September: Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi becomes the first Japanese prime minister to visit Pyongyang, making a number of political and cooperative offers. This support for the Sunshine Policy was seen by some in the U.S. as a threat to American influence in Korea.

• 3–5 October: On a visit to the North Korean capital Pyongyang, US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly presses the North on suspicions that it is continuing to pursue a nuclear energy and missiles programme. Mr Kelly says he has evidence of a secret uranium-enriching programme carried out in defiance of the 1994 Agreed Framework. Under this deal, North Korea agreed to forsake nuclear ambitions in return for the construction of two safer light water nuclear power reactors and oil shipments from the US.

• 16 October: The US announces that North Korea admitted in their talks to a secret nuclear arms programme.

• 17 October: Initially the North appears conciliatory. Leader Kim Jong-il says he will allow international weapons inspectors to check that nuclear facilities are out of use.

• 20 October: North-South Korea talks in Pyongyang are undermined by the North's nuclear programme "admission". US Secretary of State Colin Powell says further US aid to North Korea is now in doubt. The North adopts a mercurial stance, at one moment defiantly defending its "right" to weapons development and at the next offering to halt nuclear programmes in return for aid and the signing of a "non-aggression" pact with the US. It argues that the US has not kept to its side of the Agreed Framework, as the construction of the light water reactors - due to be completed in 2003 - is now years behind schedule.

• 14 November: US President George W Bush declares November oil shipments to the North will be the last if the North does not agree to put a halt to its weapons ambitions.

• 18 November: Confusion clouds a statement by North Korea in which it initially appears to acknowledge having nuclear weapons. A key Korean phrase understood to mean the North does have nuclear weapons could have been mistaken for the phrase "entitled to have", Seoul says.

• 27 November: The North accuses the US of deliberately misinterpreting its contested statement, twisting an assertion of its "right" to possess weapons into an "admission" of possession.

• December: South Korean presidential election. The Grand National Party, who opposed the Sunshine Policy, made much of the North Korean situation, although it eventually lost the election.

• 4 December: The North rejects a call to open its nuclear facilities to inspection.

• 11 December: North Korean-made Scud missiles are found aboard a ship bound for Yemen. The US illegally detains the ship, but is later forced to allow the ship to go, conceding that neither country has broken any law.

• 12 December: The North pledges to reactivate nuclear facilities for energy generation, saying the Americans' decision to halt oil shipments leaves it with no choice. It claims the US wrecked the 1994 pact.

• 13 December: North Korea asks the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to remove seals and surveillance equipment - the IAEA's "eyes and ears" on the North's nuclear status - from its Yongbyon power plant.

• 22 December: The North begins removing monitoring devices from the Yongbyon plant.

• 24 December: North Korea begins repairs at the Yongbyon plant. North-South Korea talks over reopening road and rail border links, which have been struggling on despite the increased tension, finally stall.

• 25 December: It emerges that North Korea had begun shipping fuel rods to the Yongbyon plant which could be used to produce plutonium.

• 26 December: The IAEA expresses concern in the light of UN confirmation that 1,000 fuel rods have been moved to the Yongbyon reactor.

• 27 December: North Korea says it is expelling the two IAEA nuclear inspectors from the country. It also says it is planning to reopen a reprocessing plant, which could start producing weapons grade plutonium within months.