#OTD in 1994 the US and the DPRK signed an agreement called the Agreed Framework with the goal to replace North Korean nuclear power programs and to begin to normalize relations between the two states. However, the US later failed to meet their commitments.

The agreement was created to mend hostilities between the two countries as the Clinton administration had been making plans to invade North Korea and the DPRK had just announced their intention to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Signed by US Ambassador Robert Gallucci and DPRK Vice Minister Kang Sok-ju, the Agreed Framework contained five key principles...

However, the US failed to meet their commitments, providing insufficient amounts of funding, delivering oil supplies late, keeping economic sanctions in place, significantly delaying construction of the LWRs, and listing the DPRK as part of the “Axis of Evil” in 2002.

With the agreement effectively nullified by the US’s failure to meet commitments, North Korea proceeded to create their own separate nuclear program. This in turn prompted the US to suspend all oil shipments and LWR construction, thus officially ending the agreement.

A Washington Post report later shared in 2005 that Clinton officials agreed to the plan only because they believed the DPRK would collapse before the LWR project would be completed, as North Korea’s Kim Il-Sung had recently died.

The US’s failure to uphold the agreement reflects a persisting legacy of cornering the DPRK into denuclearization.

Meanwhile, the US ignores its own role in introducing nuclear weapons to the peninsula in 1958 and continuing its nuclear arsenal in the Pacific.

We continue to advocate for Korean self determination, free from imperialist coercion.