Negotiating the North Korean Nuclear Crisis

Introduction The Korean Peninsula remains one of the most unstable and dangerous places in the world today. Forty-five years after the armistice, 37,000 American troops, together with their colleagues from the R.O.K., face more than a million North Korean troops across the demilitarized zone. One of the most dangerous moments of that tense history was just four years ago, in the summer of 1994. In 1993, isolated by the transformations of its Cold War patrons and …

…verge of exhaustion, they may turn to a third party to try to break a long-standing stalemate. This may be particularly true, as in our case, when both parties want to bring an end to their conflict, but in a face-saving way. Soon to follow were round after round of negotiations till on October 18, a final Agreed Framework was signed by the US and North Korean negotiators three days later, capping 16 months of fragmented negotiations.