Domestic priorities and international cooperation <\/p>\n
Kim Il-Sung<\/a> died on July 8, 1994, and his son Kim Jong Il succeeded him. However, he did not assume the posts of secretary-general of the KWP<\/a> or president of North Korea. Instead, he consolidated<\/a> his power over several years. In 1997 he officially became head of the KWP, and in 1998 the post of president was written out of North Korea\u2019s constitution\u2014Kim Il-Sung was given the posthumous title \u201ceternal president\u201d\u2014and Kim Jong Il was reelected chairman of the National Defense Commission, which became the country\u2019s<\/a> highest office. (A further revision of the constitution in April 2009 added the title \u201csupreme leader\u201d to the description of Kim Jong Il\u2019s position.) His regime adopted the basic guideline of \u201cmilitary first politics\u201d (s\u014fngun ch\u014fngch\u2019i) to safeguard it from any unforeseen adverse impact<\/a> resulting from such events as the collapse of the Soviet Union<\/a> and eastern European communist regimes<\/a> in the late 1980s and early 1990s and the persistent economic hardships at home.<\/p>\n The death of Kim Il-Sung had come at a critical time for North Korea. The country had been locked in a dispute over nuclear issues with the United States<\/a> and the International Atomic Energy Agency<\/a> (IAEA), which had been denied access by the North Koreans to an experimental facility at Y\u014fngby\u014fn, where it was suspected that North Korea was diverting plutonium<\/a> to build nuclear weapons<\/a>. In the summer of 1994 the North had been preoccupied with the transfer of power to Kim Jong Il; however, by October the United States and North Korea had signed a nuclear accord (the \u201cAgreed Framework\u201d). Under the terms of this agreement, the North renounced efforts to develop nuclear weapons and pledged to abide<\/a> by the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons<\/a> (Non-proliferation Treaty; NPT), in exchange for which the United States arranged for the financing and construction of two light-water reactors (LWRs) capable of producing electric power<\/a>. The agreement restored hope for North-South reconciliation and a peaceful reunification of the divided peninsula.<\/p>\n The United States, South Korea<\/a>, and Japan<\/a> formed an international consortium<\/a> known as the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) for the construction of the LWRs in North Korea; South Korea was the main contractor. More than two dozen countries eventually signed onto the project, supplying material and financial help, and construction work progressed slowly but steadily for a time.<\/p>\n In late August 1998 North Korea fired a multistage, long-range missile eastward over Japanese airspace. This new missile capability caused shock worldwide and precipitated a major global controversy. In addition, suspected underground nuclear facilities were discovered near the sites whose activities were to have been frozen under the terms of the Agreed Framework<\/a>.<\/p>\n It was reported in 2002 that North Korea was pursuing work toward producing highly enriched uranium<\/a>, which could then be used to make nuclear weapons. In December of that year North Korea expelled IAEA inspectors from the facility at Y\u014fngby\u014fn. In January 2003 North Korea withdrew<\/a> from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty<\/a>, and nuclear research operations openly resumed at Y\u014fngby\u014fn. Multiparty talks were initiated to resolve the various nuclear issues and ultimately came to involve the United States, North and South Korea, Russia<\/a>, China<\/a>, and Japan. These Six-Party Talks, as they were termed, ended in 2004 without reaching a resolution. In 2005 North Korea claimed to have nuclear weapons capability, although it was unknown whether the claim was true. After having suspended the LWR project for several years, KEDO withdrew its workers from North Korea in January 2006, and in May the organization decided to terminate the project. In October a seismic event was detected at Kilju, North Hamgy\u014fng province, and North Korea announced that it had carried out an underground test of a nuclear weapon. The country conducted another, more powerful underground nuclear test<\/a> in May 2009, again near Kilju.<\/p>\n Internal challenges and international relations <\/p>\n Throughout the 1990s North Korea suffered severe food shortages that caused widespread<\/a> starvation<\/a>. In efforts to help North Korea cope with this crisis, South Korea, Japan, the United States, and international relief agencies (including the UN World Food Programme<\/a>), provided emergency food and medical assistance. The North Korean government\u2019s response inside the country included officially promoting what it called the \u201carduous march\u201d (also termed the \u201cmeal-skipping campaign\u201d). Despite these measures, hundreds of thousands of North Koreans died of starvation in the latter half of the 1990s, and a UN study found that life expectancy<\/a> had decreased substantially and infant mortality had increased dramatically. The country\u2019s economic situation began improving in the early 21st century, in part because of North Korea\u2019s own efforts to accommodate certain aspects of market economics, including more open trading policies. In late 2009, however, the economy was thrown temporarily into chaos<\/a> when a government currency-reform program reduced the won to 1 percent of its former value while limiting individuals to exchanging only a small amount of the old currency for the new. The revaluation\u2014which was aimed in part at curbing private market activity\u2014led to inflation<\/a>, a food crisis, and public protests as many citizens saw their savings vanish. The government subsequently acknowledged the shortcomings of the reform program, and the official identified as being responsible for its implementation was executed in March 2010.<\/p>\n After Kim Jong Il\u2019s consolidation of power under the 1998 constitution, his regime began to pursue formal diplomatic relations with many countries, including those of western Europe. By early 2001 North Korea had established relations with most of the West, amid a friendlier climate created by the improving inter-Korean relations. The United States, South Korea, and Japan also had reasons for keeping diplomatic channels open with North Korea, such as maintaining peace and seeking improvements in the country\u2019s human rights<\/a> situation. Despite its successes with other countries, however, North Korea did not make any substantive<\/a> progress in its diplomatic talks with Japan and the United States, even after years of direct contact.<\/p>\n Relations with the United States<\/a> in particular reached a low point in January 2002, when U.S. Pres. George W. Bush<\/a> named North Korea, with Iran<\/a> and Iraq<\/a>, as part of an \u201caxis of evil\u201d of countries that were pursuing the development of weapons of mass destruction. Tensions remained high for several years. Multiparty talks in 2008 resulted in the U.S. government\u2019s removal of North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism in October, as North Korea took certain previously agreed-upon steps in connection with the pending nuclear issues.<\/p>\n In contrast to the hopeful beginning of the 21st century, however, the ensuing years saw the erosion of the gains that had been made in international cooperation. The joint ventures established under the \u201csunshine policy\u201d after 2000 were suspended by the North within a few years. North Korea\u2019s launch of several rockets in 2009\u2014which the international community<\/a> generally suspected were tests of ballistic<\/a> missiles\u2014were considered by many observers to be diplomatically provocative acts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Domestic priorities and international cooperation Kim Il-Sung died on July 8, 1994, and his son Kim Jong Il…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[170,1252,1251,1250,31,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-14832","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-north-korea","8":"tag-article","9":"tag-britannica","10":"tag-encyclopeadia","11":"tag-encyclopedia","12":"tag-korea","13":"tag-north-korea"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}