Democratic People's Republic of Korea
North Korea announced that it no longer considers itself a member of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has not signed or ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). It remains one of the 44 listed countries needed to sign and ratify for the CTBT to enter into force.
In December of 2002 they restarted the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, restarted reprocessing and were at the time suspected of working on a nuclear weapons programme. Fears that North Korea had nuclear weapons were confirmed when they conducted a nuclear test on 9 October 2006. This resulted in the UN Security Council imposing tough financial and weapons sanctions on them.
In December 2006 talks resumed (the six party talks) with Japan, South Korea, China, Russia and the US but ended with no sign of progress. It was not until 8 February 2007 that North Korea agreed to come back to the table and on 13 February it was announced that a tentative deal had been reached.
Under the 13 February agreement, North Korea said it would "shut down and seal" its main nuclear reactor at Yongbyon within 60 days. In return it will receive 50,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, to be supplied by the five other countries involved in the nuclear negotiations - the US, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia. North Korea will then declare and disable all its existing nuclear facilities, in return for which it will receive a further 950,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil. It will also invite the UN watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to return to the country to monitor the agreement. And it will begin talks to normalise its diplomatic relations with the US and Japan.
Read the profile on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) from the Model Nuclear Inventory (pdf), produced by the Reaching Critical Will project of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
