This profile details which major arms control agreements, regimes, initiatives, and practices that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) subscribes to and those that it does not. It also describes the major weapons programs, policies, and holdings of North Korea, as well as its proliferation record. This profile is one of a series focused on the arms control record and status of key states, all of which are available on the Arms Control Association’s Website at http://www.armscontrol.org.
Major Multilateral Arms Control Agreements and Treaties
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Signed
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Ratified
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| Biological Weapons Convention |
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1987
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| Chemical Weapons Convention |
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| Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty |
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Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) |
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1985
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Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons |
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| Outer Space Treaty |
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2009
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| Ottawa Mine Ban Convention |
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Export Control Regimes, Nonproliferation Initiatives, and Safeguards
Australia Group: Not a member.
Missile Technology Control Regime: Not a member, and has frequently exported missiles and related materials.
Nuclear Suppliers Group: Not a member.
Wassenaar Arrangement: Not a member.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Additional Protocol: None.
Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism: Not a participant.
Hague Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation: Not a participant.
Proliferation Security Initiative: Not a participant.
UN Security Council Resolution 1540: North Korea has not filed the requested reports on its activities to fulfill the resolution.
Major Weapons Programs, Policies, and Practices
Biological Weapons:
Pyongyang is believed to maintain a biological weapons capability. The United States intelligence community continues to judge that North Korea has a biotechnology infrasutrcture to support such a capability, and has a munitions production capacity that could be used to weaponinze biological weapons agents. [1]
Chemical Weapons:
North Korea is widely reported to possess a large arsenal of chemical weapons, including mustard, phosgene, and sarin agents. According to U.S. military estimates, North Korea “can deploy missiles with chemical warheads.”[2]
Missiles:
- Ballistic Missiles: North Korea is actively expanding its ballistic missile arsenal and allegedly working toward developing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). It initially relied upon assistance from the Soviet Union and China to develop its arsenal, but North Korea is now a chief exporter of ballistic missile systems and technology. The North Korean military currently deploys short-range Scud and medium-range missiles. Since 1998, North Korea has conducted three tests of missiles beyond medium range. The sole test of its two-stage intermediate-range Taepo Dong-1, intended to place a satelliote in orbit, failed in August 1998. The Taepo Dong-1 is believed to have merely served as a missile technology test-bed. The inaugural flight test of North Korea’s longest-range missile, the Taepo Dong-2, ended in failure about 40 seconds after launch on July 5, 2006. In April 2009, the Taepo Dong-2 missile was tested again. The first stage of the missile traveled approximately 270km before falling into the Sea of Japan. The remaining stages and the payload landed in the Pacific Ocean, though the intent was for the satellite payload to be launched into space. The international community has largely deemed this test to be a failure. The Taepo Dong-2 is believed to be capable of reaching the United States "if developed as an ICBM." [3]
- Cruise Missiles: North Korean is believed to possess and continues to develop anti-ship cruise missiles derived from the Chinese CSSC-3 Silkworm/Seersucker designs.
Nuclear Weapons:
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) discovered in 1992 that North Korea had diverted plutonium from its civilian program. The resulting crisis eventually yielded the 1994 U.S.-North Korean Agreed Framework, in which North Korea committed to freezing its plutonium-based weapons program at Yongbyon in exchange for two light-water reactors and other forms of energy assistance.
The Agreed Framework collapsed after the United States accused North Korea of cheating on the arrangement. U.S. intelligence increasingly had suspected North Korea of pursuing a uranium-enrichment program as an alternative path to nuclear weapons, thereby violating the agreement’s spirit, as well as that of an earlier Korean peninsula denuclearization agreement (see “Other Arms Control and Nonproliferation Activities” below). U.S. officials say that North Korean negotiators admitted to having such a covert program when challenged October 2002 on the issue. North Korean officials, however, have denied that alleged admission and continue to deny ever pursuing an uranium-enrichment program.
The Korean Economic Development Organization (KEDO), the multilateral body created to provide energy assistance to North Korea under the Agreed Framework, halted its energy aid to North Korea in November 2002. A year and one month later, KEDO suspended construction of the two light-water reactors.
North Korea ordered IAEA inspectors to leave the country Dec. 27, 2002, and announced its withdrawal from the NPT Jan. 10, 2003. In response, the IAEA referred the case to the UN Security Council. In August 2003, Russia, China, Japan, the United States, and the two Koreas also launched a multilateral diplomatic process, known as the six-party talks.
The talks initially failed to resolve the disputes, and on Feb. 10, 2005, North Korea announced that it had assembled nuclear warheads. In September 2005, the six-party talks realized its first major success with the adoption of a joint statement in which North Korea pledged to abandon its nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons programs and return to the NPT. The talks faltered shortly after. On Oct. 9, 2006, North Korea conducted its first nuclear test. The UN Security Council responded by adopting resolution 1718, enacting a variety of multilateral sanctions and demanding that Pyongyang return to the NPT.
On Feb. 13, 2007, the six-party participants agreed to an action plan detailing initial steps to implement the September 2005 Joint Statement. That action plan included shutting down North Korea’s Yongbyon reactor in return for energy aid. Using the Yongbyon facilities, North Korea is thought to have produced sufficient plutonium to assemble 6-12 nuclear devices.
The six parties concluded a follow-up agreement to the Feb. 13 action plan on Oct. 3, 2007. In that later agreement, North Korea agreed to disable its plutonium-production program at Yongbyon and provide a full accounting of all nuclear activities. In exchange for these actions, North Korea received the remaining energy aid pledged in the Feb. 13 agreement. The United States also committed to remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism and to stop applying the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act against Pyongyang.
North Korea’s failed April 2009 satellite launch was met with a United Nations Security Council condemnation and a demand that North Korea not conduct any further launches using ballistic missile technology. The North Korea responded strongly to this condemnation, withdrawing from the six party talks and declaring an intention to restart plutonium production.
North Korea then conducted its second nuclear test on June 25, 2009 with the underground detonation of a nuclear device estimated to have a yield of 2 to 6 kilotons. The UN Security Council responded with Resolution 1874, which intensified sanctions on Pyongyang. This resolution also called for UN Member States to inspect and seize North Korean cargo suspected of being in violation of the sanctions.
In November 2010, North Korea unveiled a large uranium-enrichment plant to former officials and academics from the United States. The plant contained approximately 2,000 gas centrifuges that were claimed to be operating and producing low-enriched uranium (LEU) for a light-water reactor (LWR) that North Korea is constructing. This plant is estimated to be capable of producing two metric tons of LEU each year, enough to fuel the LWR reactor under construction, or to produce 40 kg of highly-enriched uranium (HEU) – enough for one to two nuclear weapons.
Proliferation Record
North Korea has been a key supplier of missiles and missile technology to countries in the developing world, particularly in politically unstable regions such as the Middle East and South Asia. [4] Such transfers are believed to be one of Pyongyang’s primary sources of hard currency. In the past, its missile-related exports have gone to countries such as Egypt, Iran, Libya, Pakistan, Syria, and Yemen. Although clientele for North Korea's missile exports appear to have dwindled in recent years due to U.S. pressure and UN sanctions, Iran and Syria remain customers of North Korean missile assistance, and in recent years, Pyongyang is believed to have provided missile cooperation to Burma.
North Korea has also been engaged in nuclear proliferation. In April 2008, the U.S. intelligence community revealed that a Syrian facility destroyed in 2007 was assessed to have been a nuclear reactor under construction with North Korean assistance. [5] The reactor design is believed to have been based on North Korea’s 5 megawatt reactor at Yongbyon. A May 24, 2011 IAEA report said that the facility “was very likely a nuclear reactor.” Pyongyang is also believed to have shipped uranium hexafluoride to Libya in 2000 for that country’s nuclear weapons program. [6]
Other Arms Control and Nonproliferation Activities
In December 1991, the two Koreas signed a Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Under the declaration, both countries agreed not to “test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deploy or use nuclear weapons” or to “possess nuclear reprocessing and uranium enrichment facilities.” The parties also agreed to mutual inspections for verification, which have not been implemented.
-Researched and prepared by Alex Bollfrass and Erin Corcoran.
ENDNOTES
1. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Unclassified Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions, 1 January to 31 December 2010, http://www.dni.gov/reports/20110208_report_wmd.pdf.
2. Statement of General Thomas A. Schwartz, Commander in Chief United Nations Command/Combined Forces Command and Commander, United States Forces Korea, before the 107th Congress, Senate Armed Forces Committee, March 5, 2002.
3. National Air and Space Intelligence Center, Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat, 2009, http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/missile/naic/NASIC2009.pdf.
4. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Unclassified Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions, 1 January to 31 December 2010, http://www.dni.gov/reports/20110208_report_wmd.pdf.
5. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Background Briefing with Senior U.S. Officials on Syria's Covert Nuclear Reactor and North Korea's Involvement, April 24, 2008, http://www.dni.gov/interviews/20080424_interview.pdf.
6. Olli Heinonen, "North Korea's Nucldear Enrichment: Capabilities and Consequences," 38 North Website, http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/21153/north_koreas_nuclear_enrichment.html.