SEOUL, Korea, Republic Of -- Bill Clinton offered oil and reactors. George W. Bush mixed threats and aid. Barack Obama stopped trying after a rocket launch.

While Seoul and Washington welcomed Pyongyang's declaration on Saturday to suspend further intercontinental ballistic missile tests and shut down its nuclear test site, the past is littered with failure.

A decades-long cycle of crises, stalemates and broken promises gave North Korea the room to build up a legitimate arsenal that now includes purported thermonuclear warheads and developmental ICBMs. The North's latest announcement stopped well short of suggesting it has any intention of giving that up.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday to kick off a new round of high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with Pyongyang. The inter-Korean summit could set up more substantial discussions between Kim and President Donald Trump, who said he plans to meet the despot he previously called "Little Rocket Man" in May or June.

A look at previous negotiations with North Korea and how the currently planned talks between Seoul, Pyongyang and Washington took shape:

The Clinton administration in October 1994 reached a major nuclear agreement with Pyongyang, ending months of war fears triggered by North Korea's threat to withdraw from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and convert its stockpile of nuclear fuel into bombs.

Under the "Agreed Framework," North Korea halted construction of two reactors the United States believed were for nuclear weapons production in return for two alternative nuclear power reactors that could be used to provide electricity but not bomb fuel, and 500,000 metric tons of fuel oil annually for the North.

The deal was tested quickly. North Korea complained about delayed oil shipments and construction of the reactors, which were never delivered. The United States criticized the North's pursuit of ballistic missile capability, demonstrated in the launch of a two-stage rocket over Japan in 1998.

The Agreed Framework further lost political support in Washington with the inauguration of Bush, who in his first State of the Union address in January 2002 grouped North Korea with Iran and Iraq as parts of an "axis of evil."

The deal collapsed for good months later after U.S. officials confronted North Korea over a clandestine nuclear program using enriched uranium. Washington stopped the oil shipments and Pyongyang restarted its nuclear weapons program.

Responding to Washington's toughened stance, North Korea announced in 2003 it obtained a nuclear device and would withdraw from the Nonproliferation Treaty.

This brought the United States back to the negotiating table with the North and the six-party talks also involving South Korea, China, Japan and Russia began in Beijing in August 2003.

After months of fiery negotiations, North Korea accepted a deal in September 2005 to end its nuclear weapons program in exchange for security, economic and energy benefits.

But the agreement was shaky from the start as it came just days after the U.S. Treasury Department ordered American banks to sever relations with a Macau bank accused of helping North Korea to launder money from drug trafficking and other illicit activities, which hampered Pyongyang's international financial transactions.

Disagreements between Washington and Pyongyang over the financial punishment of Banco Delta Asia temporarily derailed the six-nation talks. In October 2006, the North went on to conduct its first nuclear test detonation.

North Korea agreed to resume the disarmament talks a few weeks after the nuclear test. In February 2007, the United States and the four other nations reached an agreement to provide North Korea with an aid package worth about $400 million in return for the North disabling its nuclear facilities and re-allowing international inspectors into the country.

North Korea demolished the cooling tower at its Nyongbyon reactor site in June 2008. But in September, the North declared it will resume reprocessing plutonium, complaining that Washington wasn't fulfilling its promise to remove the country from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The Bush administration removed North Korea from the list in October after the country agreed to continue disabling its nuclear plant. However, a final attempt by Bush to complete an agreement to fully dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons program collapsed in December when the North refused to accept U.S.-proposed verification methods.

The six-nation talks have stalled since then. The North conducted its second nuclear test in May 2009, months after Obama took office.

Months after taking power following the death of his father, current North Korean leader Kim reached a deal with the Obama administration in February 2012 to suspend nuclear weapons and missile tests and uranium enrichment and to also allow international inspectors to monitor its nuclear activities in exchange for U.S. food aid.

The United States killed the deal in April when the North launched a long-range rocket it claimed was built for delivering satellites. The failed launch was seen by the outside world as a prohibited test of ballistic missile technology.

The North criticized the United States of "overreacting" and launched another long-range rocket in December it said successfully delivered a satellite into space.

In 2013, Kim announced that his government would pursue a national "byungjin" policy aimed at simultaneously seeking nuclear development and economic growth. This was seen as a clean break from the North's previous stance that mainly used the nuclear program as a bargaining chip to extract concessions from foreign governments, rather than for immediate military purposes.

North Korea's abrupt diplomatic outreach in recent months comes after a flurry of weapons tests that marked 2017, including the underground detonation of an alleged thermonuclear warhead and three launches of developmental ICBMs designed to strike the U.S. mainland.

Inter-Korean dialogue resumed after Kim in his New Year's speech proposed talks with the South to reduce animosities and for the North to participate in February's Winter Olympics in Pyongchang. North Korea sent hundreds of people to the games, including Kim's sister, who expressed her brother's desire to meet with Moon for a summit. South Korean officials later brokered a potential summit between Kim and Trump.

While South Korean and U.S. officials have said Kim is likely trying to save his broken economy from heavy sanctions, some analysts see him as entering the negotiations from a position of strength after having declared his nuclear force as complete in November last year.

Seoul has said Kim expressed genuine interest in dealing away his nuclear weapons. But North Korea for decades has been pushing a concept of "denuclearization" that bears no resemblance to the American definition, vowing to pursue nuclear development unless Washington removes its troops from the peninsula and the nuclear umbrella defending South Korea and Japan.

Some experts say Kim's nuclear program is now too advanced to realistically expect a roll back to near zero.

"Kim will not offer CVID at the door," said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University who's advising Moon on his summit with Kim. He was referring to an abbreviation for the "complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement" of the North's nuclear weapons program.

"Everything depends on whether Trump can accept a deal that puts out the 'early fire' -- taking away the North's ICBMs and freezing and closing its known nuclear and missile production facilities -- and leave the rest for future negotiations," Koh said. </s> SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea is considering suspending talks with the United States and may rethink a freeze on missile and nuclear tests unless Washington makes concessions, a senior diplomat said on Friday, according to news reports from the North's capital.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States wished to continue talks with North Korea and had "every expectation" that its leader, Kim Jong Un, would stick to pledges not to resume nuclear and missile testing.

Pompeo gave no sign of U.S. willingness to soften its stance in demanding that North Korea give up its nuclear weapons.

North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui blamed top U.S. officials for the breakdown of last month's summit between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump in Hanoi, Russia's TASS news agency and the Associated Press reported.

"We have no intention to yield to the U.S. demands (at the Hanoi summit) in any form, nor are we willing to engage in negotiations of this kind," TASS quoted Choe as telling reporters in the North Korean capital.

The second Trump-Kim summit broke down over differences about U.S. demands for Pyongyang to denuclearize and North Korea's demand for dramatic relief from international sanctions imposed for its nuclear and missile tests, which it pursued for years in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Choe said Pompeo and U.S. national security adviser John Bolton "created the atmosphere of hostility and mistrust and, therefore, obstructed the constructive effort for negotiations between the supreme leaders of North Korea and the United States", TASS reported.

Kim would make an announcement soon on his position on the denuclearization talks and North Korea's next steps, TASS quoted Choe as saying. She said Washington had thrown away a golden opportunity at the summit and warned that Kim might rethink a moratorium on missile launches and nuclear tests, AP reported.

"I want to make it clear that the gangster-like stand of the U.S. will eventually put the situation in danger," AP quoted Choe as saying.

However, she added: "Personal relations between the two supreme leaders are still good and the chemistry is mysteriously wonderful."

Bolton told reporters outside the White House Choe's statement was "inaccurate." He said he had spoken to his South Korean counterpart but wanted to consult with other U.S. officials before responding further.

Bolton later accompanied Trump to a pre-arranged meeting with top defense officials at the Pentagon.

U.S. SEEKS MORE 'CONVERSATIONS' WITH NORTH

Pompeo told reporters it was not the first time he had been called "gangster-like" by North Korea. "And following that we continued to have very professional conversations ... I have every expectation we will be able to continue to do that," he said.

Pompeo said that in her remarks, Choe had left open the possibility that negotiations would continue.

"It's the administration's desire that we continue to have conversations around this," Pompeo said. "As the president said when he was in Hanoi, the offer that they made simply didn't rise to the level that was acceptable, given what they were asking for in exchange."

Kim had committed multiple times to Trump in Hanoi that he would not to resume nuclear or missile testing, Pompeo said. "That's Chairman Kim's word. We have every expectation he will live up to that commitment."

Pompeo told Fox News he did not want to forecast "what we will do or what we might do" if Kim were to resume testing, but added: "That would be most unfortunate. I think Chairman Kim understands that."

Trump has pointed to North Korea's freeze in nuclear and missile testing since 2017 as a positive outcome from nearly a year of diplomatic engagement with North Korea. He and Kim had previous exchanged fiery rhetoric that had raised fears of war.

Washington has said it is closely watching activity at a North Korean rocket site that U.S. think tanks have said could be preparations for a new launch.

Trump has made much of his personal chemistry with Kim and has said he would be "very disappointed" in Kim if North Korea were to resume testing.

South Korea, which has an ambitious agenda of engagement with North Korea that is dependent on Pyongyang and Washington resolving at least some of their differences, said it was too early to tell what Choe's comments might mean.

"We cannot judge the current situation based solely on Vice Minister Choe Son Hui's statements. We are watching the situation closely. In any situation, our government will endeavor for the restart of North Korea-U.S. negotiations," South Korea's presidential Blue House said in a statement. Choe's comments echoed the North's usual rhetoric at tense points in its dealings with Washington. North Korea expert Joshua Pollack said North Korea may be delivering an ultimatum. "They're putting down a marker, saying which way things are headed if nothing changes," Pollack, of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California, said. Joel Wit of the 38 North think tank said North Korea was likely toughening its negotiating position after the collapse of the Hanoi summit. "It is likely to gauge the U.S. reaction in the days ahead before making a decision to launch a rocket," he said. Choe had said after the Hanoi talks that Kim might lose his commitment to pursue a deal with the United States after seeing it reject a request to lift some sanctions in return for the North destroying its main known nuclear complex. In Beijing, Premier Li Keqiang urged patience and further dialogue between North Korea and the United States. Earlier on Friday, a spokeswoman for South Korea's Ministry of Unification told a press briefing that the weekly inter-Korean meeting scheduled at a liaison office in Kaesong, North Korea, had been canceled after the North Koreans said they would not be sending senior officials. The spokeswoman said the ministry had not confirmed why the North Korean officials decided not to attend. </s> SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korea says North Korea has agreed to impose a moratorium on tests of nuclear weapons and missiles if it holds talks with the United States.

South Korea’s presidential national security director said Tuesday that North Korea said it’s ready to have “heart-to-heart” talks with the United States on issues regarding the North’s potential denuclearization and the normalization of relations between Pyongyang and Washington.

He said the North also made it clear that it wouldn’t need to keep its nuclear weapons if military threats against the country are resolved and it receives a security guarantee.

He said the North also promised not to use conventional or nuclear weapons against South Korea.

The comments were made after South Korean officials returned from a visit to the North, where they met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. </s> March 15 (UPI) -- North Korea is considering resuming its nuclear testing program, a senior Pyongyang official said Friday.

Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui said the United States must change its position on North Korean denuclearization in order to continue a moratorium on testing, The New York Times reported.

Choe also said Friday that personal relations between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump are "still good" and the "chemistry is mysteriously wonderful." She added, though, that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton have created an "atmosphere of hostility and mistrust" that ended negotiations at a summit in Vietnam in February.

"We have no intention to yield to the U.S. demands [at the Hanoi summit] in any form, nor are we willing to engage in negotiations of this kind," she told reporters at a news conference in Pyongyang, Russian state news agency TASS reported.

The remarks follow reports that North Korea may be preparing for another rocket launch. Recent satellite photographs indicate Pyongyang has rebuilt a rocket launch pad. North Korea had conducted a number of rocket tests before and immediately after Trump took office, but Kim agreed to stop them after new dialogue with the U.S. president.

Choe said Kim now has reservations about continuing negotiations with Trump after the summit failure in Hanoi.

The United States did not immediately respond to the comments. This week, a U.S. representative for North Korea said the U.S. administration would not accept a phased denuclearization, but insisted U.S. and North Korean officials are still closely engaged on the subject. </s> North Korea is considering suspending talks with the United States and may rethink a ban on missile and nuclear tests unless Washington makes concessions, news reports quoted a senior diplomat as saying.

Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui blamed top U.S. officials for the breakdown of last month’s summit in Hanoi between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Russia’s Tass news agency and the Associated Press said.

“We have no intention to yield to the U.S. demands (at the Hanoi summit) in any form, nor are we willing to engage in negotiations of this kind,” TASS quoted Choe as telling reporters in the North Korean capital.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton “created the atmosphere of hostility and mistrust and, therefore, obstructed the constructive effort for negotiations between the supreme leaders of North Korea and the United States”, Tass quoted Choe as saying.

Kim is set to make an official announcement soon on his position on the denuclearisation talks with the United States and the North’s further actions, it added, citing Choe.

Choe said Washington threw away a golden opportunity at the summit and warned that Kim might rethink a moratorium on missile launches and nuclear tests, the Associated Press news agency said.

“I want to make it clear that the gangster-like stand of the U.S. will eventually put the situation in danger,” AP quoted her as saying. But she added: “Personal relations between the two supreme leaders are still good and the chemistry is mysteriously wonderful.”

South Korea, which has an ambitious agenda of engagement with North Korea that is dependent on Pyongyang and Washington resolving at least some of their differences, said it was too early to tell what Choe’s comments might mean. </s> SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea is considering suspending nuclear talks with the United States and its leader may rethink a ban on missile tests, news reports from the North’s capital on Friday quoted a senior official as saying.

After the failure of last month’s summit of U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the North’s top nuclear envoy said its leadership was considering dropping denuclearisation talks, Russia’s TASS news agency said.

“We have no intention to yield to the U.S. demands (at the Hanoi summit) in any form, nor are we willing to engage in negotiations of this kind,” the agency quoted North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui as saying.

Kim is set to make an official announcement soon on his position regarding talks with the United States and the North’s further actions, it added, citing Choe, who was addressing a news conference in the North Korean capital.

Choe also said Washington threw away a golden opportunity at the summit and warned that Kim might rethink a moratorium on missile launches, the Associated Press news agency added.

The comments run counter to optimism displayed by a U.S. negotiator this week, despite the collapse of last month’s talks in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi.

That meeting crumbled over differences about U.S. demands for Pyongyang to denuclearise and North Korea’s demand for dramatic relief from international sanctions imposed for its nuclear and missile tests.

Choe had said after the Hanoi talks that Kim might lose his commitment to pursue a deal with the United States after seeing it reject a request to lift some sanctions in return for the North destroying its main known nuclear complex.

In Washington this week, the U.S. special representative for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, said the United States expected to be able to continue its close engagement, though he offered no specifics on when new talks might be held.

“Diplomacy is still very much alive,” Biegun said on Monday, but stopped short of saying if there had been any talks since the summit.

In Beijing, Premier Li Keqiang urged patience and more dialogue between North Korea and the United States.

“The peninsula problem can be said to be complicated and long-standing, and it cannot be solved overnight,” Li told an annual news conference on Friday, although his remarks were not made in response to the TASS report. </s> North Korea is preparing its Punggye-ri nuclear test site for international inspectors, Yonhap news agency reported on Wednesday, citing South Korea's spy agency.

While North Korea has stopped nuclear and missile tests in the past year, it did not allow international inspections of its dismantling of Punggye-ri in May, prompting criticism that its actions were merely for show and could be reversed.

North Korea agreed to allow international inspectors to observe a "permanent dismantlement" of key missile facilities, in return for reciprocal measures by the United States, the South's President Moon Jae-in said in September.

The country also promised further steps, including the closure of its main Yongbyon nuclear complex, Moon said following his summit with the North's Kim Jong Un.

Kim vowed to work towards denuclearisation during his unprecedented June summit with US President Donald Trump.

But Pyongyang's actions have fallen short of US demands for irreversible steps to scrap its arsenal, including a full disclosure of nuclear facilities and materials.

Effective on Thursday, a "no-fly" zone between North and South Korea will extend 40km north and south from the Military Demarcation Line in the east and 20km in the west for fixed-wing aircraft.

The agreement also bars live-fire drills involving fixed-wing aircraft and air-to-ground guided weapons in the no-fly area. South Korea and the US had held such drills regularly until halting joint exercises in June.

The military accord, sealed during last month's summit in Pyongyang, is one of the most concrete agreements between the two Asian neighbours this year.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed "discontent" with the agreement during a phone call with his counterpart earlier this month. </s> North Korea’s leader says his country is in the final stages of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Kim Jong Un made his remarks Sunday in a televised New Year’s speech.

North Korea conducted two nuclear tests this year, undeterred by international rebukes and increased sanctions.

Beyond the existential threat to the world posed by permitting the unpredictable and repressive North Korean state to possess these weapons of mass destruction, analysts say giving in to Pyongyang’s demand to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) it signed in the 1980s could also spark a new global arms race.

The country has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 over its nuclear and ballistic missile tests. Pyongyang has responded to the sanctions by accelerating its weapons development programs through the summer, testing numerous land-based and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

The sanctions were tightened last month after Pyongyang conducted its fifth and largest nuclear test September 9.

Former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said he is “deeply concerned (about) the mounting tension on the Korean peninsula imposed by North Korea’s ballistic missiles test as well as nuclear tests.”

A senior U.S. military official said last month that North Korea appears able to mount a miniaturized nuclear warhead on a missile but is still struggling with missile re-entry technology necessary for longer range strikes. </s> SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea fired two unidentified projectiles into sea on Thursday, South Korea's military said, the first launches in more than two months as North Korean and U.S. officials work to restart nuclear diplomacy.The South's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the projectiles fired from the eastern coastal town of Wonsan flew 430 kilometers (267 miles).It wasn't immediately known what type of projectiles North Korea fired. But in the past, such launches have involved missiles or artillery.The joint chiefs said South Korean and U.S. militaries were analyzing details of the launches.Thursday's launches came as the North was ramping up pressure on the United States ahead of the possible resumption of nuclear diplomacy.During a third summit at the Korean border late last month, U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed to resume nuclear negotiations, which had been deadlocked since their second summit in Vietnam in February ended without any agreement due to disputes over U.S.-led sanctions.North Korea said last week it may lift its 20-month suspension of nuclear and missile tests to protest expected military drills between the United States and South Korea that Pyongyang says are an invasion rehearsal.On Tuesday, North Korean state media said Kim inspected a newly built submarine and ordered officials to further bolster the country's military capabilities.
North Korea has reportedly threatened to suspend negotiations with the United States regarding nuclear weaponry, as well as resume related missile testing.