History of tension over N Korea

By Stephen Cviic
BBC News

The US has long been monitoring N Korea's nuclear activites

The news that North Korea has reportedly tested a nuclear missile is likely to bring strong condemnation from around the world.

But the issue of Pyongyang's nuclear programme is nothing new. It has been a running sore in international relations for at least the past 14 years.

Tension began to grow in 1993, when Pyongyang refused to allow an inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency of two unreported facilities suspected of holding nuclear waste.

Shortly afterwards it announced its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

For a while, the situation on the Korean peninsula seemed critical.

But diplomatic activity helped to calm the situation, and the following year Washington and Pyongyang signed an agreement under which North Korea promised to freeze and eventually dismantle its plutonium-based nuclear weapons programme.

In exchange, it was to receive aid to help produce nuclear power, but this aid never materialised.

'Axis of Evil'

In 2002, American President George W Bush described North Korea as part of an "Axis of Evil", and a few months later US officials said they had discovered evidence of another nuclear weapons programme, this time involving uranium.

In November 2002 the US, Japan and South Korea halted oil supplies which had been part of the 1994 agreement.

The following month, North Korea reactivated its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon.

In 2003 there were repeated demands from Pyongyang for direct bilateral talks with Washington - demands which were rejected by the Bush administration.

Eventually a compromise formula was found - the new forum for negotiations would be a series of six-party talks involving North Korea, South Korea, the US, Russia, China and Japan.

In September 2005, these did eventually produce a draft agreement, but some of the most difficult subjects, such as whether Pyongyang had an undisclosed uranium programme, were not mentioned.

The accord has done little to ease subsequent tensions.

By this point, most experts agreed that North Korea probably already possessed at least one or two nuclear weapons.

The question remained: Would it eventually test them?

That question now appears to have been answered.