Timeline of North Korea Nuclear Program - Phase II

Phase II

• 1980-85: North Korea builds a factory at Yongbyon to refine yellowcake and produce fuel for reactors.
• 1984: The DPRK completes construction of a “Radiochemical laboratory” which is actually a reprocessing plant used to separate plutonium from spent nuclear fuel at the Yongbyon site.
• 1984-1986: North Korea completes construction on a 5MWe gas-cooled, graphite moderated nuclear reactor for plutonium production. North Korea also commences with the construction of a second 50MWe nuclear reactor.
• 1987: The Yongbyon IRT-2000 research reactor reaches a power rating of 8MW.
• 1989: Soviet control of communist governments throughout Europe begins to weaken and the Cold War comes to a close. Post-Soviet states emerge in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. As the USSR's power declines, North Korea loses the security guarantees and economic support that had sustained it for 45 years.
• Through satellite photos, the U.S. learns of new construction at a nuclear complex near the North Korean town of Yongbyon. U.S. intelligence analysts suspect that North Korea, which had signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1985 but had not yet allowed inspections of its nuclear facilities, is in the early stages of building an atomic bomb.
• In response, the U.S. pursues a strategy in which North Korea's full compliance with the NPT would lead to progress on other diplomatic issues, such as the normalization of relations.
• 1991: The U.S. withdrew its last nuclear weapons from South Korea in December 1991, though U.S. affirmation of this action was not clear, resulting in rumors persisting that nuclear weapons remained in South Korea. The U.S. had deployed nuclear weapons in South Korea since January 1958, peaking in number at some 950 warheads in 1967.
• 1992: In May, for the first time, North Korea allows a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), then headed by Hans Blix, to visit the facility at Yongbyon. Blix and the U.S. suspect that North Korea is secretly using its five-megawatt reactor and reprocessing facility at Yongbyon to turn spent fuel into weapons-grade plutonium. Before leaving, Blix arranges for fully equipped inspection teams to follow.
• The inspections do not go well. Over the next several months, the North Koreans repeatedly block inspectors from visiting two of Yongbyon's suspected nuclear waste sites and IAEA inspectors find evidence that the country is not revealing the full extent of its plutonium production.
• 1993: In March, North Korea threatens to withdraw from the NPT. Facing heavy domestic pressure from Republicans who oppose negotiations with North Korea, President Bill Clinton appoints Robert Gallucci to start a new round of negotiations. After 89 days, North Korea announces it has suspended its withdrawal. (The NPT requires three months notice before a country can withdraw.)
• In December, IAEA Director-General Blix announces that the agency can no longer provide "any meaningful assurances" that North Korea is not producing nuclear weapons.
• 12 October 1994: the United States and North Korea signed the "Agreed Framework": North Korea agreed to freeze its plutonium production program in exchange for fuel oil, economic cooperation, and the construction of two modern light-water nuclear power plants. Eventually, North Korea's existing nuclear facilities were to be dismantled, and the spent reactor fuel taken out of the country.
• 26 October 1994: IAEA Chairman Hans Blix tells the British House of Commons' Foreign Affairs Select Committee the IAEA is "not very happy" with the Agreed Framework because it gives North Korea too much time to begin complying with the inspections regime.