North Korea's Nuclear Crisis Essay

3448 words - 14 pages

Abstract
The problem about North Korea’s nuclear threat has perplexed international organizations and some East Asia countries for several decades. Firstly, this paper introduce a brief coverage of the overview of the North Korea’s nuclear crisis. And then, it goes to show the role of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), and outlines the current debate surrounding the issue. In the most important section, there are three key recommendations on how the UNSC should go about responding to the nuclear problem and helping to reconcile the nuclear threat of North Korea to the society. The key policy recommendations include: 1. to create beneficial condition and get North Korea back to the ...view middle of the document...

History
North Korea started its nuclear weapons program in the 1970s when the North Korean president Kim ll-sung made a decision to accelerate the development of a domestic nuclear capability. In 1985 United States officials announced for the first time that they had intelligence data proving that North Korea had a substantial arsenal of weapons and a secret nuclear reactor was being built near the small town of Yongbyon (Aftergood and Kristensen, 2006). Under international pressure, Pyongyang acceded to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in 1985, and also signed a nuclear safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1992. However, the nuclear threat of North Korea was not eliminated due to the shock announcement of its withdrawal from the NPT, and North Korea asserted that this was a ‘self-defensive measure’ taken to defend its ‘supreme interests’ (Mack, 1993). The UNSC passed a resolution in 1993 urging North Korea to cooperate with the IAEA and to implement the 1991 North-South denuclearization accord. In 2003, North Korea withdrew from the NPT for the second time, and several months later, a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman announced that North Korea had completed the reprocessing of this spent fuel, a new nuclear crisis occurred. This led to the first round of Six-party Talks in August 2003, which aimed to find a peaceful resolution to the security concerns as a result of the North Korean nuclear weapons program (Preez and Potter, 2003).

In this issue, there are several significant actors which include North Korea, the UNSC, and the members of Six-Party Talks ( the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea). It is the key of addressing this issue to deal with the relationship between North Korea, the contracting states and the UNSC. They all have continued negotiations to map out a verification plan to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons and end Pyongyang’s nuclear program. The U.S. has contributed to North Korea’s siege mentality by pursuing a theatre missile defense system and by encouraging Japan to expand its military role in the region (Feffer, 1999).

The problem is significant because the nuclear threat of North Korea can result in an arms race. Other countries in the world, especially its neighboring Asian countries, would be nervous and afraid of the attack from North Korea. In addition, it has made the environment much less stable and mush less secure since the North Korea’s nuclear test. In order to the international peace and security, it needs to eliminate the nuclear threat.

The current debate surrounding the problem
On April 5, 2009, North Korea launched a multistage rocket over Japan, but it failed and landed in the Pacific Ocean. North Korean officials insisted that it was a communications satellite launch (Crail, 2009). However, international community and many countries which include the United States, South Korea and Japan...

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