The nuclear program can be traced back to about 1962,when North Korea committed itself to what it called "all-fortressization", which was the beginning of the hyper-militarized North Korea of today. In 1963, North Korea asked the Soviet Union for help in developing nuclear weapons, but was refused. The Soviet Union agreed to help North Korea develop a peaceful nuclear energy program, including the training of nuclear scientists.
Later, China, after its nuclear tests, similarly rejected North Korean requests for help with developing nuclear weapons.
Soviet engineers took part in the construction of the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center[10] and began construction of an IRT-2000 research reactor in 1963, which became operational in 1965 and was upgraded to 8 MW in 1974. In1979 North Korea indigenously began to build in Yongbyon a second research reactor, an ore processing plant and a fuel rod fabrication plant.
North Korea's nuclear weapons program dates back to the 1980s.
Focusing on practical uses of nuclear energy and the completion of a nuclear weapon development system, North Korea began to operate facilities for uranium fabrication and conversion, and conducted high- explosive detonation tests. In 1985 North Korea ratified the NPT, but did not conclude the required safeguards agreement with the IAEA until 1992. In early 1993, while verifying North Korea's initial declaration, the IAEA concluded that there was strong evidence this declaration was incomplete. When North Korea refused the requested special inspection, the IAEA reported its non-compliance to the UN Security Council. In 1993, North Korea announced its withdrawal from the NPT , but suspended that withdrawal before it took effect.
Under the 1994 Agreed Framework , the U.S. government agreed to facilitate the supply of two light water reactors to North Korea in exchange for North Korean disarmament. Such reactors are considered "more proliferation-resistant than North Korea's graphite- moderated reactors", but not "proliferation proof".
Implementation of the Agreed Framework foundered, and in 2002 the Agreed Framework fell apart, with each side blaming the other for its failure. By 2002, Pakistan had admitted that North Korea had gained access to Pakistan's nuclear technology in the late 1990s.
Based on evidence from Pakistan, Libya, and multiple confessions from North Korea itself, the United States accused North Korea of non-compliance and halted oil shipments; North Korea later claimed its public confession of guilt had been deliberately misconstrued.
By the end of 2002, the Agreed Framework was officially abandoned.
In 2003, North Korea again announced its withdrawal from the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. In 2005, it admitted to having nuclearweapons but vowed to close the nuclear program.
On October 9, 2006, North Korea announced it had successfully conducted its first nuclear test. An underground nuclear explosion was detected, its yield was estimated as less than a kiloton , and some radioactive output was detected. On January 6, 2007, the North Korean government further confirmed that it had nuclear weapons. On March 17, 2007, North Korea told delegates at international nuclear talks that it was preparing to shut down its main nuclear facility. The agreement was reached following a series of six-party talks , involving North Korea, South Korea, China, Russia, Japan, and the United States begun in 2003. According to the agreement, a list of its nuclear programs would be submitted and the nuclear facility would be disabled in exchange for fuel aid and normalization talks with the United States and Japan. This was delayed from April due to a dispute with the United States over Banco Delta Asia , but on July 14, International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors confirmed the shutdown of North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear reactor and consequently North Korea began to receive aid. This agreement fell apart in 2009, following a North Korean missile test. In April 2009, reports surfaced that North Korea has become a "fully fledged nuclear power", an opinion shared by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohamed ElBaradei . On May 25, 2009, North Korea conducted a second nuclear test, resulting in an explosion estimated to be between 2 and 7 kilotons. [28] The 2009 test, like the 2006 test, is believed to have occurred at Mantapsan , Kilju County , in the north-eastern part of North Korea.
In February 2012, North Korea announced that it would suspend uranium enrichment at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center and not conduct any further tests of nuclear weapons while productive negotiations involving the United States continue. This agreement included a moratorium on long-range missiles tests.
Additionally, North Korea agreed to allow IAEA inspectors to monitor operations at Yongbyon. The United States reaffirmed that it had no hostile intent toward the DPR and was prepared to improve bilateral relationships, and agreed to ship humanitarian food aid to North Korea.
The United States called the move "important, if limited", but said it would proceed cautiously and that talks would resume only after North Korea made steps toward fulfilling its promise. However, after North Korea conducted a long-range missile test in April 2012, the United States decided not to proceed with the food aid.
On February 11, 2013, the U.S. Geological Survey detected a magnitude 5.1 seismic disturbance, reported to be a third underground nuclear test. North Korea has officially reported it as a successful nuclear test with a lighter warhead that delivers more force than before, but has not revealed the exact yield. Multiple South Korean sources estimate the yield at 6–9 kilotons, while the German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources estimates the yield at 40 kilotons. However, the German estimate has since been revised to a yield equivalent of 14 kt when they published their estimations in January 2016.
On January 6, 2016 in Korea, the United States Geological Survey detected a magnitude 5.1 seismic disturbance, reported to be a fourth underground nuclear test. North Korea claimed that this test involved a hydrogen bomb . This claim has not been verified. Within hours, many nations and organizations had condemned the test. Expert U.S. analysts do not believe that a hydrogen bomb was detonated. Seismic data collected so far suggests a 6–9 kiloton yield and that magnitude is not consistent with the power that would be generated by a hydrogen bomb explosion. "What we're speculating is they tried to do a boosted nuclear device, which is an atomic bomb that has a little bit of hydrogen, an isotope in it called tritium," said Joseph Cirincione , president of the global security firm Ploughshares Fund . The German source which estimates for all the North Korea's past nuclear test has instead made an initial estimation of 14 kt, which is about the same (revised) yield as its previous nuclear test in 2013.
However the yield estimation for January 2016 nuclear test was revised to 10 kt in the subsequent nuclear test from North Korea.
On February 7, 2016, roughly a month after the alleged hydrogen bomb test, North Korea claimed to have put a satellite into orbit around the Earth. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe had warned the North to not launch the rocket, and if it did and the rocket violated Japanese territory, it would be shot down. Nevertheless, North Korea launched the rocket anyway, claiming the satellite was purely intended for peaceful, scientific purposes.
Several nations, including the United States, Japan, and South Korea , have criticized the launch, and despite North Korean claims that the rocket was for peaceful purposes, it has been heavily criticized as an attempt to perform an ICBM test under the guise of a peaceful satellite launch. China also criticized the launch, however urged "the
relevant parties" to "refrain from taking actions that may further escalate tensions on the Korean peninsula".
A fifth nuclear test occurred on September 9, 2016. This test yield is considered the highest among all five tests thus far, surpassing its previous record in 2013. The
South Korean government had been underestimating the test yield for years (Especially the 2013 test, where South
Korea Defense Ministry initially suggests a 6–7 kt yield but has later revised upwards to maximum 9 kt by using the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization’s calculation method when the Chinese academics suggests about 12 kt yield as well as NORSAR estimates the yield to be about 10 kilotons after they have compared the seismic data from all three North
Korean nuclear tests. , but has acknowledged that the yield of September 2016 nuclear test is about 10 kt despite other sources suggesting a 20 to 30 kt yield.
The same German source which has made estimation of all North Korea's previous nuclear tests suggested an estimation of a 25 kiloton yield.
Other nations and the United Nations have responded to North Korea's ongoing missile and nuclear development with a variety of sanctions; on March 2, 2016, the UN Security Council voted to impose additional sanctions against North Korea .
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