North Korean Actions, 1950 - 2007: Controversy and Issues
Released: 2007-04-20T00:00:00

Introduction

This selective list of events provides information on reported instances of North Korean provocations against South Korea, the United States, and Japan between June 1950 and 2007 and related actions. The term "provocation" is defined to include armed invasion; border violations; infiltration of armed saboteurs and spies; hijacking; kidnapping; terrorism (including assassination and bombing); threat/intimidation against political leaders, media personnel, and institutions; incitement aimed at the overthrow of the South Korean government; actions undertaken to impede progress in major negotiations; and tests of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. Reports of North Korean involvement in drug trafficking and "political and other extrajudicial killing" are outside the purview of this report. Information in this report was taken from South Korean and Western sources, but typically has been denied by the North Korean government.

North Korean provocations remain a congressional concern because of North Korea's programs to develop nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems, the danger of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and the danger that a North Korean provocation could escalate into hostilities (e.g., if a North Korean fighter plane collided with a U.S. reconnaissance plane in a manner similar to the 2001 collision off the coast of China of a Chinese fighter plane with a U.S. EP-3 reconnaissance plane). Since President Bush's inclusion of North Korea (with Iraq and Iran) as an "axis of evil" in his January 29, 2002 State of the Union address, tensions between North Korea and the United States have been rising. This can be seen in the following list of provocations.

For information on current U.S. policy and relations with North Korea, see CRS Report RL33567, Korea-U.S. Relations: Issues for Congress , by [author name scrubbed]; CRS Report RL33590, North Korea ' s Nuclear Weapons Development and Diplomacy , by [author name scrubbed]; CRS Report RS21391, North Korea ' s Nuclear Weapons: Latest Developments , by [author name scrubbed]; or CRS Report RL31696, North Korea: Economic Sanctions , by [author name scrubbed].

The sources used for this list of provocations include South Korean newspapers ( Choson Ilbo , Chungang Ilbo (aka JoongAng Ilbo ), Hanguk Ilbo , Hangyore Sinmun, Korea Herald , Korea Times , Tong-A Ilbo (aka Dong-A Ilbo), and Yonhap News Service; the North Korean ruling party's organ ( Nodong Sinmun ); [North] Korean Central News Agency ( KCNA ) wire service reports; and Japanese newspapers ( Asahi Shimbun , Mainichi Shimbun , Sankei Shimbun , and Yomiuri Shimbun ) and Kyodo News Service; U.S. dailies such as the Washington Post , New York Times , Washington Times , Wall Street Journal , and Los Angeles Times ; other sources cited in the Foreign Broadcast Information Service daily reports; Associated Press , Reuters wire service reports, and chronologies maintained by Global Insight.

CRS has not attempted to verify independently any of these media reports. This report will be updated as circumstances warrant.

Provocative Actions: 1950 - 2007

1950

06/1950 — On June 25, North Korean troops launched a full-scale invasion of South Korea—"an act of aggression" that the United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea determined was "initiated without warning and without provocation, in execution of a carefully prepared plan." The Korean War ended in July 1953 with an armistice. Total U.S. casualties included 33,629 killed in action and 20,617 killed in non-battle situations for a total of 54,246 deaths, and 103,284 wounded for total U.S. casualties of 157,530. The Republic of Korea suffered 58,127 combat deaths and 175,743 wounded. Other countries under the United Nations Command had an estimated 2,800 killed and 10,783 wounded. Neither China nor North Korea has released numbers for their casualties, but they are estimated at 900,000 for China and 520,000 for North Korea. In addition, the two Koreas each suffered estimated casualties of one million civilians.

1958

02/1958 — North Korean agents hijacked a South Korean airliner to Pyongyang that had been en route from Pusan to Seoul; 1 American pilot, 1 American passenger, 2 West German passengers, and 24 other passengers were released in early March, but 8 other passengers remained in the North.

1965

04/1965 — Two North Korean MiG jet fighters "attacked and damaged" a U.S. RB-47 reconnaissance plane over the Sea of Japan, about 50 miles east of the nearest North Korean coast.

1968

01/1968 — A 31-member commando team, disguised as South Korean soldiers and civilians, infiltrated within striking distance of President Park Chung Hee's office/residence complex (The Blue House) before they were intercepted by South Korean police; 29 commandos were killed and one committed suicide; one who was captured revealed that their mission was to kill President Park and other senior government officials. Two South Korean policemen and five civilians were killed by North Korean infiltrators.

01/1968 — Two days after the commando attempt on President Park, North Korea attacked and seized the U.S. intelligence ship Pueblo with a crew of 83 officers and men off Wonsan in international waters outside the 12-mile limit claimed by North Korea; one American crewman was killed in the initial attack. The remaining crew were finally released in December 1968, but not the vessel.

10/1968 — One hundred and thirty sea-borne commandos infiltrated the Ulchin and Samchok areas on the eastern coast of South Korea; 110 were killed, 7 were captured, and 13 fled.

1969

03/1969 — Six North Korean infiltrators killed a South Korean policeman on guard duty in an eastern coastal area near Chumunjin, Kangwon province.

04/1969 — North Korean MiG jet fighters shot down an unarmed U.S. EC-121 reconnaissance plane over the Sea of Japan, about 90 miles off the North Korean coast, resulting in the loss of 31 lives.

06/1969 — North Korean agents infiltrated Huksan Island off the west coast; 15 were shot dead.

07/1969 — North Korea unveiled the formal establishment of a United Revolutionary Party (a.k.a. the Party for Unification and Revolution) as "an underground revolutionary organization of South Korea." The aim of the organization was to overthrow the South Korean government and replace it with a pro-North Korean "democratic regime."

10/1969 — Four U.S. soldiers were ambushed and killed by North Korean intruders near the southern boundary of the DMZ.

12/1969 — North Korean agents hijacked a South Korean airliner YS-11 to Wonsan en route from Kangnung to Seoul with 51 persons aboard; in February 1970. 39 of the crew and passengers were released. As of January 2001, the remaining 12 were still detained in North Korea, along with 454 other South Koreans abducted since 1955, according to the South Korean government. In March 1999, South Korea's National Intelligence Service disclosed the names of 454 South Koreans being detained in the North; also disclosed was the identification of 407 South Korean prisoners of war (POWs) in the North. According to a revised January 2001 estimate by the South Korean defense ministry, 268 POWs (compared with 351 announced in September 2000) were presumed to be still alive in North Korea.

1970

03/1970 — North Korea provided sanctuary to 9 members of a Japanese radical left-wing "Red Army" group who had hijacked a Japanese airliner to Pyongyang. (For recent developments, see 10/2000 below.)

04/1970 — Three North Korean infiltrators were shot to death at Kumchon, Kyonggido, south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas. Five South Korean soldiers were wounded during the encounter.

06/1970 — North Korean patrol boats seized a South Korean broadcast vessel with 20 crew on board off the west coast near the military demarcation line.

1971

01/1971 — A North Korean attempt to hijack a Korean Airline plane F-27 en route from Seoul to Sokcho on the east coast was foiled.

1974

02/1974 — North Korean patrol vessels sunk two South Korean fishing boats and detained 30 fishermen.

11/1974 — A first North Korean infiltration tunnel dug across the DMZ was discovered.

08/1974 — South Korean President Park Chung Hee's wife was killed during another attempt on his life. An agent of a pro-North Korean group in Japan who entered Seoul disguised as a tourist fired several shots at Park at a major public function; Park escaped unhurt, but the First Lady was hit by stray bullets and died several hours later. The agent, Mun Se-gwang, was tried and convicted, and executed.

1975

09/1975 — Two North Korean infiltrators were intercepted at Kochang, Cholla Pukdo; one was shot dead. During the encounter, two South Korean soldiers were killed and two wounded.

1976

06/1976 — Three North Korean infiltrators were shot to death in the eastern sector south of the DMZ, and the South Korean side suffered the loss of six soldiers and injuries to six others.

08/1976 — A group of North Korean soldiers, wielding axes and metal pikes, attacked a U.S.-South Korean tree-trimming work team in a neutral area inside the DMZ at Panmunjom, killing 2 U.S. army officers and wounding 4 American enlisted men and 5 South Korean soldiers. In a message to UN Commander General Richard G. Stillwell, North Korea's Kim Il Sung described the incident as "regrettable," without admitting North Korean responsibility for what the U.S. government condemned as a "vicious and unprovoked murder" of the officers.

1977

07/1977 — A North Korean attempt to abduct a South Korean couple failed in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

1978

02/1978 — South Korean actress Choi Eun-hee and her film-director husband Shin Sang-ok were kidnapped in Hong Kong and taken to Pyongyang. (In April 1984, South Korean government officials stated that the kidnappees were working in North Korea producing propaganda films that glorified Kim Il Sung and his son, Kim Jong Il). The couple escaped to South Korea in 1986 while on a filming assignment in Vienna.

10/1978 — A third North Korean infiltration tunnel dug under the DMZ was discovered. The tunnel is considered especially significant because of its location, extending 400 meters south of the DMZ, barely two kilometers southwest of a forward U.S. army base and four kilometers from the truce village of Panmunjom. Military experts judge that 30,000 fully armed men accompanied by light artillery could pass through every hour.

11/1978 — A team of three North Korean armed agents killed four South Korean citizens—two in Hongsong County and one in Kongju County, Chungchong Namdo; and one at Osan, Kyonggido.

1979

06/1979 — A South Korean teacher Ko Sang-moon was abducted by North Koreans in the Netherlands.

10/1979 — Three North Korean agents were intercepted while trying to infiltrate the eastern sector of the DMZ; one was killed.

07/1979 — A North Korean attempt to abduct Han Yong-gil, an employee of the Korea Trade Promotion Agency, failed in France.

1980

03/1980 — Three North Koreans tried to infiltrate the South across the estuary of Han River; all were killed.

11/1980 — Three North Korean infiltrators were shot to death at Whenggando, Cholla Namdo. One South Korean civilian was killed and six others wounded.

12/1980 — Three North Korean agents were shot dead off the southern coast of Kyongsang Namdo. Two South Korean soldiers were killed and two others wounded.

1981

03/1981 — Of three North Korean infiltrators at Kumhwa, Kangwondo, one was shot dead.

06/1981 — A North Korean spy boat was sunk off the coast of Sosan, Chungchong Namdo; 9 agents were shot to death and one was captured.

07/1981 — Three North Korean agents were shot to death in the upper stream of Imjin River, while trying to cross the river into the South.

1982

05/1982 — Two North Korean infiltrators were spotted on the east coast; one was shot to death.

08/1982 — Police in Canada uncovered a North Korean plot to assassinate South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan during a visit to that country.

1983

10/1983 — The explosion of a powerful bomb, several minutes before South Korean President Chun was to arrive to lay a wreath at the Martyr's Mausoleum in Rangoon, Burma (Myanmar), killed 17 senior South Korean officials and injured 14 who were accompanying President Chun, then on the first leg of a six-nation Asian tour. Among the killed were: presidential chief-of-staff and another senior presidential assistant; deputy prime minister/minister of economic planning; three cabinet members including foreign minister; 3 deputy ministers; and the South Korean ambassador to Burma. The explosion also killed four Burmese nationals and wounded 32 others. President Chun stated that the killings were "a grave provocation not unlike a declaration of war," and warned the North that "should such a provocation recur, there would be a corresponding retaliation in kind." North Korean leader Kim Il Sung dismissed Chun's statement as "a preposterous slander." Two suspects were arrested and tried in the Rangoon Divisional Court: North Korean army major, Zin Mo, and captain, Kang Min Chol. Captain Kang Min Chol confessed to the bombing and gave details of his training in North Korea and transport to Burma on a North Korean freighter. He also disclosed that after the arrival of his assassination team in Burma, the team stayed in the home of a North Korean embassy councilor. On November 4, Burma broke off diplomatic relations with North Korea. In February 1984, the Burmese Supreme Court sustained the death penalty handed down by the lower court.

12/1983 — Two North Korean armed spies, Chon Chung-nam and Yi Sang-gyu, were captured at Tadaepo.

1984

02/1984 — Two Canadians, Charles Yanover and Alexander Gerol, testified in a Canadian court that North Korean agents hired them in 1981 for $600,000 to assassinate South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan. They were convicted and sentenced to prison terms of one-to-two years. The assassination was to take place during Chun's visit to the Philippines in July 1982.

09/1984 — A North Korean agent killed 2 residents of Taegu, South Korea, and severely wounded another before committing suicide.

1985

10/1985 — A North Korean spy ship was sunk by the South Korean navy off the coast of Pusan, South Korea.

1986

09/1986 — A bomb blast at Kimpo International Airport in Seoul killed five and wounded over 30. The chief of the South Korean National Police believed that North Korean agents, or individuals under North Korean direction or influences, planted the bomb.

1987

01/1987 — A North Korean attempt to abduct a South Korean citizen (Yoon Tae-shik) failed in Hong Kong.

01/1987 — A South Korean fishing boat (#27 Tongjin-ho) was abducted along with 12 crewmen.

08/1987 — A South Korean student at MIT, Lee Chae-hwan, was kidnapped in Austria.

11/1987 — A bomb planted by two North Korean terrorists on a Korean Airline Boeing 707, with 20 crew members and 95 passengers aboard, exploded in midair over the Andaman Sea off the coast of Burma. The plane was en route from Baghdad to Seoul. Kim Hyon-hui, one of the terrorists who was arrested in Bahrain and confessed to the crime, was tried and convicted in a Seoul court. The sabotage bombing was reportedly a North Korean warning against those planning to take part in the Seoul Olympics. (In January 1988, Kim, the self-confessed agent, stated that she had been trained for two years to pass as Japanese by a Japanese woman of Korean descent, Yi Un-hye, who Japanese police believe had been kidnapped by North Korean agents).

1988

01/1988 — U.S. Secretary of State determined "that North Korea is a country which has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism," under the authority of the Export Administration Act of 1979, as amended (50 U.S.C. App.2405(j)).

06/1988 — The head of a North Korean trading company revealed after his defection to the South that North Korean embassies around the world had been ordered to do everything possible to stop other countries from participating in the Seoul Olympics.

1990

03/1990 — Another North Korean infiltration tunnel dug under the DMZ was discovered; this was the fourth one uncovered since November 1974. (The second one was discovered in March 1975.) South Korean authorities believe that there may be as many as 17 tunnels in all (see 10/1978 above).

1991

06/1991 — The North Korean ruling party's daily news organ, Nodong Sinmun , called on South Korean youths, students, and people to "eliminate the Roh Tae-woo fascist regime and establish a genuine democratic regime."

1992

05/1992 — Three North Koreans, in South Korean uniforms, were shot dead at Cholwon, Kangwondo, south of the DMZ. Three South Koreans were wounded in this encounter.

10/1992 — A North Korean 400-member spy ring in South Korea, directed by North Korean Communist party official Lee Son-sil, was uncovered by South Korea's Agency for National Security Planning. It was revealed that the mission of the spy ring was to establish an underground command center for subversive operations in the South. According to the South Korean agency, North Korean agents had infiltrated through South Korea's coastlines.

1993

12/1993 — Vice Marshal Choe Kwang, Chief of the General Staff of the North Korean military (and defense minister, 1995-1997), declared at a major state function that the military "has the heavy and honorable task of reunifying the fatherland with guns in the nineties without fail."

1994

03/1994 — For the first time in more than two decades, North Korea issued a threat of war in an inter-Korean meeting in Panmunjom. In response to Seoul's chief delegate mentioning the possibility of UN sanctions against the North for its refusal to accept full international nuclear inspections, Pyongyang's chief delegate reportedly replied: "Seoul is not far away from here. If a war breaks out, Seoul will turn into a sea of fire."

06/1994 — A North Korean attempt to abduct a South Korean professor, Lee Jin-sang, from an Ethiopian university in Addis Ababa was foiled.

1995

05/1995 — A North Korean patrol boat fired on a South Korean fishing vessel, killing three South Korean fishermen; North Korea released 5 other fishermen in December 1995.

06/1995 — North Korean soldiers threatened the captain of a South Korean vessel with harm in a North Korean port unless he hoisted the North Korean flag while the vessel was there to deliver a South Korean humanitarian rice shipment to the North.

07/1995 — A team of three North Korean agents and their two Korean-Chinese collaborators in Jilin abducted a South Korean pastor, the Reverend Ahn Seung-woon, in southern Manchuria. Pyongyang claimed that Reverend Ahn defected voluntarily. (A North Korean, convicted in a Chinese court of masterminding the abduction, was deported to North Korea by China in July 1997 upon serving a two-year prison term.)

08/1995 — North Korea seized a South Korean rice delivery vessel and arrested its crew in a North Korean port after a South Korean crewman took photographs from the ship. The ship was released 12 days later.

10/1995 — Two armed North Koreans were intercepted at the Imjin River just south of the DMZ; one was shot to death and the other escaped.

10/1995 — Two North Korean agents were intercepted at Puyo, about 100 miles south of Seoul; one was shot to death and the other was taken alive. The captured agent disclosed that he had infiltrated two months earlier, with a mission to contact anti-government dissidents, politicians, and an organization of underground cells.

1996

04/1996 — On three occasions, a combined total of several hundred armed North Korean troops crossed the military demarcation line into the joint security area of the DMZ at Panmunjom and elsewhere in violation of the Korean armistice agreement, after Pyongyang's unilateral announcement that it no longer would abide by the armistice provisions concerning the integrity of the DMZ.

05/1996 — Seven North Korean soldiers crossed the military demarcation line facing South Korean defensive positions just south of the DMZ, but withdrew when South Korean troops fired warning shots.

05/1996 — Five North Korean naval patrol craft crossed into South Korean-defended waters off the west coast and withdrew after a four-hour standoff with South Korean naval vessels. A similar three-hour incursion by three North Korean craft in the same area occurred in June 1996.

07/1996 — A North Korean spy was captured in Seoul after posing as a Filipino professor for 12 years. Chung Su Il (alias: Mohammed Kansu), 62, told police that "scores, perhaps hundreds" of North Korean spies were operating in the South.

09/1996 — A disabled North Korean submarine was spotted bobbing off the shore near the city of Kangnung. Twenty-six North Korean military personnel landed on the east coast from the submarine that was found to be on an espionage/reconnaissance mission. According to South Korea, eleven of the infiltrators were shot to death by North Korean commandos who were on the submarine; 13 others refused to surrender and were killed in battle with South Korean troops; one was captured and one escaped. During the South Korean hunt for the infiltrators, North Koreans killed 11 South Korean military personnel and civilians and wounded five others.

10/1996 — Choi Duk Keun, a South Korean diplomat, was murdered in Vladivostok, Russia, following a North Korean threat to "retaliate" for the submarine incident. Circumstantial evidence initially pointed to North Korean complicity in the murder, and later autopsy results showed that poison found in Choi's body was the same type of poison carried by North Korean infiltrators from the grounded submarine in September.

1997

02/1997 — In Seoul, Lee Han-yong was shot by two hit men believed to be North Korean agents. Nephew of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's former wife, Song Hye-rim, Lee had defected to the South in 1982. The shooting took place three days after Hwang Jang-yop, a high ranking North Korean party official, walked into the South Korean consulate in Beijing for defection to the South. After being in a coma, Lee died 10 days later in a Seoul hospital. The shooting was believed to be a warning to Hwang and other would-be defectors to the South.

02/1997 — North Korea threatened unspecified "retribution" against the South Korean newspaper Chung ' ang Ilbo for publishing an account of Kim Il Sung's death occurring in the course of a heated verbal exchange between Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il in July 1994—a story attributed to Hwang Jang-yop, a North Korean defector via Beijing in February 1997.

03/1997 — Japan's daily newspaper Sankei Shimbun , based on an interview with a former North Korean agent An Myong-chin (who defected to South Korea in September 1993), reported that in November 1977, Megumi Yokota, a 13-year-old Japanese school girl was abducted in Niigata City and taken to North Korea for use as a teaching aide at a North Korean school for spy training. Japanese authorities disclosed that An's description of the girl matched the profile of a girl reported missing in Niigata, Japan, at that time. Japanese authorities suspect that North Korea may have kidnapped at least nine other Japanese nationals since the mid-1970s.

04/1997 — Five North Korean soldiers opened fire at South Korean positions after crossing the Military Demarcation Line in the Cholwon sector.

06/1997 — Three North Korean patrol boats slipped into South Korean-controlled waters in the Yellow Sea, about two miles south of the Military Demarcation Line, and opened fire at South Korean patrol boats, the first such attack since October 1995 when a North Korean shore battery at Ongjin did so against South Korean naval vessels.

06/1997 — North Korea's ruling party organ, Nodong Sinmun , continued to incite "pro-democratic" South Koreans to "overthrow" South Korea's Kim Young Sam government as "an urgent requirement" in a patriotic, anti-fascist struggle for "independence, democracy, and reunification."

06/1997 — North Korea issued a threat to deliver "a merciless retaliatory blow" to South Korea's daily newspaper Choson Ilbo for its June 24 editorial urging Kim Jong Il to relinquish power in favor of "a new reform-oriented [North Korean] group." Denouncing the editorial as "the most provocative declaration of war against us," North Korea retorted that it had the right to retaliate "until ... the Choson Ilbo ceases to exist."

07/1997 — Fourteen North Korean soldiers intruded some 70 meters south of the military demarcation line—the midpoint of the four-kilometer-wide DMZ—ignoring South Korean broadcast warnings to withdraw. The incursion led to a 23-minute exchange of heavy gunfire, the most serious since the intrusion of September 1996.

11/1997 — North Korea threatened to "demolish" South Korea's state-run Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) alleged to be "a mouthpiece of fascist dictatorship." It vowed to "kill everyone involved" in the production of a KBS TV mini-series depicting the life of repression and corruption in North Korean society "without so much as waking up a mouse or a bird" unless the KBS dropped the production forthwith.

11/1997 — A North Korean ring of six espionage agents was uncovered in Seoul, including a noted professor emeritus, Ko Yong-pok, at the elite Seoul National University. Often hailed as "the founder of sociology" in Korea, Ko repeatedly spied for the North since 1973, while posing as a "conservative" consultant to the South Korean government on inter-Korean issues.

1998

04/1998 — A South Korean news dispatch quoted a member of the North Korean delegation to an inter-Korean conference in Beijing as making a "provocative statement" to the effect that North Korea would rather have a "liberation war" than capitulating to the South Korean attempt to "politicize" the food-and-fertilizer aid issue.

06/1998 — In a show of defiance against the United States, North Korea declared its intention to continue to develop, test, and deploy missiles as a means of countering the alleged U.S. military threat, adding that it had few options of earning foreign currency other than exporting missiles as a result of the U.S. policy aimed at "economic isolation" of the North. It also asserted that the United States should lift its economic embargo and compensate for losses that could be caused by termination of missile sales, if it is really concerned over North Korean missiles.

06/1998 — On June 22, a North Korean midget submarine was seized after it was spotted entangled in South Korean fishing nets off the South Korean town of Sokcho, south of the DMZ. When brought to shore three days later, the nine crew aboard were found dead from an apparent group suicide.

06/1998 — On June 27, breaking a four-day silence on the incident, North Korea blamed the South for the death of the North Korean crew and demanded the immediate return of the bodies and the submarine. South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, stating that the submarine intrusion violated the armistice agreement as well as the basic inter-Korean agreement of 1992 for reconciliation, exchange and cooperation, urged North Korea to "admit responsibility and take reasonable measures."

07/1998 — A body of a North Korean frogman was found on a beach south of the DMZ, along with paraphernalia suggesting an apparent infiltration/espionage mission.

08/1998 — U.S. intelligence agencies reportedly "detected a huge secret underground complex in North Korea that they believe is the centerpiece of an effort to revive the country's frozen nuclear weapons program," a development that could possibly signify Pyongyang's decision to abandon a 1994 "agreed framework" on suspending its suspected nuclear weapons program. However, North Korea maintained that the underground complex in question was a civilian economic facility under construction as part of an unspecified economic undertaking. North Korea also claimed that the United States "should ... compensate for groundlessly humiliating and slandering us with fabrication and for infringing on our sovereignty and defaming us." In the days following the disclosure on the underground complex, Washington and Seoul reportedly concluded that the underground facilities do not violate the 1994 agreed framework freezing the North's suspected nuclear weapons program. (In May 1999, a group of U.S. inspectors visited the underground site; the suspected site at Kumchang-ri reportedly was "an extensive, empty tunnel complex").

08/1998 — On August 31, North Korea test-fired a new 3-stage Taepodong-1 missile in an arc over Japan, causing angry reactions from Japan and the United States as a provocation that stoked tensions in Northeast Asia. Several days later, however, North Korea claimed that it used a multistage rocket to successfully launch a satellite into orbit for peaceful exploration of space, not a ballistic missile as alleged by U.S. and other sources.

11/1998 — A North Korean high-speed spy boat got away from pursuers in South Korean waters near the west coast island of Kanghwa, aborting an apparent operation to infiltrate agents into or ferry agents back from the South.

12/1998 — At a Pyongyang rally, North Korean youths and students vowed to turn Washington into "a sea of fire and to crush Seoul and Tokyo."

12/1998 — In a firefight, the South Korean navy sank a North Korean semi-submersible high-speed boat some 150 kilometers southwest of Pusan. The body of a North Korean frogman was recovered near the site. The vessel was first spotted two kilometers off the port city of You.

1999

03/1999 — Two suspected spy ships of North Korea entered Japanese territorial waters off Noto Peninsula facing the Sea of Japan (a.k.a. the East Sea), disguised as Japanese fishing trawlers (without fishing nets but bristling with an array of antennas) . They led a small armada of Japanese coast guard and naval ships and aircraft on a high-speed chase before fleeing into the North Korean port of Ch'ongjin, known to be frequented by North Korean spy operations vessels. North Korea denied its involvement in the reported incident.

06/1999 — Several North Korean ships provoked a nine-day naval confrontation off South Korea's western coast in disputed waters on the Yellow Sea—over the disputed sea border known as the Northern Limit Line (NLL) . On June 15, 1999, when the confrontation ended in an exchange of fire, both sides blamed each other for starting the firefight. One North Korean torpedo boat caught fire and sank with its entire crew on board, while five others were heavily damaged. Two of the more modern South Korean vessels sustained minor damage. It was the most serious naval clash since the end of the Korean War—and the second such incident since December 1998 (see above). Since the June encounter, North Korea asserted that more bloodshed would be "inevitable" unless the South Korean intrusion into "our territorial waters is checked." It also called on the U.S. side to renounce the NLL and to "withdraw all its ships from the disputed waters."

09/1999 — On September 9, 1999, the South Korean National Intelligence Service announced the arrest of five South Koreans, alleged to be members of a pro-North group called the "Revolutionary Party for People and Democracy." It was reported that the group had been formed in March 1992 to radicalize South Korean college campuses for revolutionary and anti-American activities, getting instructions from Pyongyang through the "Hotmail" web-based e-mail service —this despite Pyongyang's solemn pledge in 1992 to the South not to attempt to sabotage or undermine it. On October 7, 1999, South Korean security authorities identified nearly 20 more members as alleged members of the "Revolutionary Party for People and Democracy.

09/1999 — According to South Korea's National Intelligence Service, South Korean businessman Chang Se-chol was abducted in Dandong, China to North Korea.

2000

01/2000 — South Korean Rev. Dong-Shik Kim, a legal resident of Lynchburg, Virginia, was reported missing in Yanji, northeastern China, since January 16, 2000. Rev. Kim is said to have told his coworkers on that day that he would go out for lunch with two North Korean defectors. Citing the report in Dong-A Ibo , a Seoul daily (February 3, 2000), Seoul's Yonhap news agency reported that those defectors were actually North Korean agents disguised as defectors and that ten people were involved in Rev. Kim's kidnapping. In October 2000, South Korea's National Intelligence Service reportedly confirmed that Rev. Kim was kidnapped by North Koreans in Yanbian, China, on February 1, 2000. In October 2000, South Korea's National Intelligence Service reportedly confirmed that Rev. Kim was kidnapped by North Koreans in Yanbian, China, on February 1, 2000.

03/2000 — On March 9, North Korea rejected a U.S. request that it stop providing shelter to members of the now-defunct Japanese Communist League-Red Army faction, who had hijacked a Japanese airliner to Pyongyang in 1970 (see 03/1970 above), and expel or deport those members still in the North. In a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency, North Korea claimed, "It is the sovereign state's legitimate right recognized by international law to protect members of the Japanese 'Red Army' who sought political asylum in the DPRK, and nobody can put his nose into this issue." A State Department counter-terrorism expert was reported as saying that sheltering hijackers remained a serious offence, even if they had not carried out acts of violence for years.

03/2000 — On March 23, North Korea unilaterally declared new navigation "zones and waterways" in the Yellow Sea in disputed waters near the Northern Limit Line (NLL), which the United States-led United Nations Command has maintained as a de facto sea border between the two Koreas since August 30, 1953. The declaration covers waters near five South Korea-held islands, all located west and south of the NLL but within North Korea's claimed territorial waters. It would allow passage by South Korean ships near, to and from, the islands but only within and through the North Korean-designated zones and waterways. North Korea threatened military action against intruders "without warnings." South Korea responded that Pyongyang's violation of the NLL would constitute "a provocation" and reaffirmed its resolve to "defend" the sea border

07/2000 — Through its Radio Pyongyang broadcast beamed to South Korea, North Korea threatened to "blow up" ( p ' okp ' a ) the conservative mass-circulation daily Choson Ilbo for "slandering our Republic" by claiming that the Korean War was started by a southward invasion of North Korea. North Korea argued that the newspaper's action, harmful to national unity and reunification, "is not a matter of freedom of the press but of high treason."

07/2000 — North Korea assailed South Korea's opposition leader, Lee Hoi-chang, as "an anti-reunification element...a traitor, a fool, and an imbecile." Lee was accused of defaming the authority of North Korean leadership when he spoke in the South Korean National Assembly on July 6, on, among other things, the need for reciprocity in inter-Korean cooperation.

10/2000 — On October 6, North Korea and the United States issued a joint statement agreeing to oppose all forms of terrorism, to exchange information regarding international terrorism, and to resolve outstanding issues in this regard between the two sides. The two sides also underscored their commitment to cooperate in taking effective measures to fight against terrorism, such measures including "not providing material support or resources, including safehaven, to terrorists and terrorist groups, bringing terrorists to justice, and fighting terrorist acts against the safety of civil aviation and maritime navigation." The U.S. side noted that it will work toward removing North Korea from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, if North Korea will meet the requirements of U.S. law.

10/2000 — On October 19, North Korea claimed that any South Korean attempt to link the North with the 1983 terrorist bombing in Rangoon, Myanmar, would amount to a provocation against North Korea, "a criminal attempt to brand the North as a 'sponsor of terrorism.'" Stating that it will never tolerate such an "anti-North diatribe," at a time when inter-Korean relations are evolving favorably since the North-South summit in June 2000, North Korea repeated its "unequivocal" position that it had nothing to do with the bombing incident.

11/2000 — Japanese authorities arrested Kang Song-hui, a former high ranking official of a pro-North Korean organization of Korean residents in Japan, initially on insurance fraud charges. Investigation revealed that Kang, after receiving espionage training in 1979 in the North, served as a North Korean spy for 20 years collecting information on South Korea while based in Japan in a bid to build an underground communist network in South Korea.

2001

4/9/01 — North Korean patrol boats briefly entered ROK waters, on the southern side of the Northern Limit Line that is the de-facto border in the Yellow Sea. The boats, which ostensibly were guiding North Korean fishing vessels, retreated after being challenged by ROK naval ships. The incident was repeated on April 10. Similar incidents occurred on February 5 and March 3.

5/27/01 — A North Korean patrol boat infiltrated into the southern side of the Northern Limit Line (NLL) northwest of Paekryung Island in the Yellow Sea and stayed for 47 minutes before returning to the North. South Korea said that the violation took place in the process of North Korea cracking down on Chinese fishing boats which were operating nearby. The incident was the second one in May and the seventh incident of its kind in 2001.

6/4/01 — The Korea Herald reported that three DPRK cargo vessels crossed into ROK's territorial waters Saturday and returned to international waters Sunday after being challenged by ROK naval vessels.

7/6/01 — A North Korean patrol boat crossed the Northern Limit Line by about two nautical miles in the Yellow Sea and maneuvered for some 40 minutes before returning to the North's territorial waters. This was the 11 th intrusion by a North Korean naval vessel in 2001.

9/17/01 — During Japan's Prime Minister Koizumi's summit in Pyongyang with Kim Jong-Il, the North Korea leader admitted that his country had kidnapped 11 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s. He said the actions were "unfortunate," and he apologized. Four abductees were still alive, and six were confirmed dead.

11/18/01 — A North Korean patrol boat crossed the Northern Limit Line in the Yellow Sea 6.5 nautical miles west of Baekryong Island. The vessel intruded 1.8nm into South Korean waters for 36 minutes in what was the 12 th such incident of the year.

11/27/01 — Soldiers in the North fired three rounds at a South Korean guard post leading South Korean soldiers to respond with about a dozen shots. No one was injured.

12/22/01 — Japan's Coast Guard sank a North Korean "spy ship" after a chase and exchange of gunfire when it ignored a warning to stay out of Japan's 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone. The ship may have sunk itself to avoid capture.

2002

1/5/02 — A North Korean patrol boat briefly infiltrated South Korean waters off Yonpyong Island in the Yellow Sea.

3/13/02 — The Guinea-Bissau navy discovered a stash of arms aboard the North Korean ship the Golden Like, which then managed to escape, a source close to the navy said Friday. The vessel entered Bissau port on Wednesday, officially to seek a fishing license, but a routine search by the navy's security services uncovered Kalashnikovs, sub-machine guns and ammunition in various parts of the ship, the source said.

6/29/02 — A gun battle erupted between South and North Korean naval ships in the Yellow Sea. North Korean patrol boats allegedly crossed the Northern Limit Line and opened fire on a South Korean patrol boat. Four South Koreans and an undetermined number of North Koreans were killed.

10/17/02 — The U.S. State Department revealed that during October 4-6 meetings in Pyongyang between U.S. envoy James Kelley and North Korea, the North admitted that it was pursuing a nuclear weapons development program. This was confirmed two days later by a North Korean delegate to the United Nations, but he said the uranium-enrichment equipment was not yet in operation.

10/22/02 — Facing pressure to scrap a nuclear weapons program, North Korea warned the United States that it would take unspecified "tougher counteraction" if Washington did not accept talks on the issue.

12/11/02 — A North Korean ship en route to Yemen was stopped by allied forces in the Persian Gulf and was found to be carrying Scud missiles hidden under bags of cement. The ship was released after Yemen said the missiles were for its army.

12/26/02 — North Korea moved approximately 1,000 nuclear fuel rods from storage into the Yongbyon nuclear power plant.

2003

1/10/03 — North Korea announced it will withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty immediately because it was "most seriously threatened" by the United States.

1/11/03 — North Korean Ambassador to China, Choe Jin Su, said Pyongyang no longer felt bound by the 1999 missile test moratorium.

1/20/03 — A North Korean diplomat was quoted in a Hong Kong newspaper as saying that, if the North was attacked by the United States, it would retaliate against the United States but would not attack South Korea.

2/5/03 — North Korea announced it had reactivated its 5-megawatt nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. The reactor could produce enough material for a nuclear bomb in about a year. North Korea, however, had apparently not restarted the nuclear fuel reprocessing facility at Yongbyon which could generate weapons-grade plutonium more quickly from the 8,000 fuel rods in storage.

2/18/03 — North Korea threatened to abandon the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War if the United States imposed trade sanctions against the North claiming that a blockade against it would violate article 15 of the armistice. Pyongyang also accused the United States of plotting an attack.

2/19/03 — A North Korean fighter jet briefly crossed seven miles into South Korean airspace over the Yellow Sea prompting the South Korean air force to send six fighter planes of its own and put ground-to-air missiles on alert. The two-minute incursion ended without incident but nonetheless raised tensions at a time when nerves were already on edge over the North's nuclear program and its threat to pull out of the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War. South Korea's military said that the flight was the first such incursion since 1983 and that it would lodge an official protest.

2/24/03 — For the first time in five years, North Korea test-fired a short-range, anti-ship missile into the Sea of Japan just a few hours before a ceremony inaugurating South Korea's new President, Roh Moo- Hyun. North Korea had notified Japan of the impending tests.

3/2/03 — Four North Korean fighter jets intercepted a U.S. Air Force reconnaissance plane in international airspace over the Sea of Japan. This was the first hostile act by a North Korean aircraft against a U.S. plane since the 1960s.

3/10/03 — For the second time in two weeks, North Korea fired a Silkworm ground-to-ship nonballistic missile into the Sea of Japan.

4/10/03 — North Korea's withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty becomes effective.

4/18/03 — KCNA's English edition quotes a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman as saying that North Korea has learned from the US-led war on Iraq that it needs "a powerful deterrent" and admits it is successfully reprocessing more than 8,000 spent fuel rods. However, analysts note the initial Korean-language version of the article says that North Korea is only on the verge of reprocessing. The English version is pulled from the KCNA website.

5/29-31/03 — Visiting North Korea to discuss the nuclear crisis, a delegation of U.S. lawmakers, led by Representative Curt Weldon meet with senior North Korean leaders. Weldon reported said that the North Koreans "admitted to having nuclear capability" as well as trying to "expand their nuclear production program."

7/1/03 — The New York Times reports the CIA has informed U.S. allies in Asia that U.S. satellites have identified an advanced testing site at Yongdok where North Korea could be developing the technology to fit nuclear warheads onto its missiles.

7/8/03 — During an informal meeting in New York, North Korean Ambassador to the U.N. Park Gil Yon tells the State Department's envoy for North Korean affairs Jack Pritchard that North Korea finished reprocessing all of the 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods stored at its Yongbyon complex on June 30.

7/17/03 — South and North Korean soldiers briefly exchange machine-gun fire at the DMZ.

8/23/03 — The South Korean navy fires warning shots after a North Korean navy vessel crossed the northern limit line (NLL).

10/3/03 — KCNA reports that all the country's nuclear facilities, including the 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon, are fully operational, adding that "all the technological matters have been solved fully in the process of making a switch-over in the use of plutonium." The report also says the reprocessing of the 8,000 irradiated fuel rods was completed in June.

10/20/03 — A spokesman for the South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff says North Korea has test-fired a surface-to-ship missile as part of annual military exercises.

11/24/03 — The South Korean navy fires five warning shots after a North Korean patrol boat crossed the northern limit line (NLL).

2004

5/23/04 — The New York Times reports that IAEA inspectors have discovered evidence North Korea sold nearly two tons of uranium hexafluoride, a key element necessary to make an atomic bomb, in 2001 to Libya.

8/8/04 — North Korean agents operating along the Chinese border reportedly kidnapped Ms. Jin Kyung-sook (also spelled out Gyeong-suk), a former North Korean refugee and current South Korean passport holder, while retrieving her camcorder along the Tumen River. Ms. Jin's husband, Mun Joung-hun, was not captured by the North Koreans and disputes the allegation that the couple was spying.

9/12/04 — Sources in Seoul and Beijing report seeing a huge mushroom cloud in northern North Korea on September 9, the anniversary of the founding of the DPRK. President Bush reportedly is briefed that the cloud may have resulted from a nuclear test. North Korea claims the cloud resulted from a detonation associated with a hydroelectric dam, but when it transports foreign ambassadors to the area for a visual inspection, it brings them to a site 60 miles away from where the cloud was reported. South Korean authorities later say the episode may have been an unusual cloud formation.

9/27/04 — In a speech before the opening session of the U.N. General Assembly, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon says "the ever intensifying U.S. hostile policy" and the lack of clarity about "the secret nuclear related experiments in South Korea ... makes us unable to participate in the talks aimed at discussing the nuclear weapon program." Later, at a news conference, Choe says "We have already made clear that we have already reprocessed 8,000 wasted fuel rods and transformed them into arms."

11/1/04 — South Korean patrol boats fire warning shots to repel three North Korean patrol boats that reportedly crossed the northern limit line (NLL) in two separate incidents.

12/6/04 — In an interview with the New York Times , IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei says that he is "sure" that North Korea has reprocessed all the 8,000 rods of spent fuel that the IAEA had watched over until December 2002.

12/8/04 — Japanese officials announce that the results of DNA tests on a box of bones and ashes that North Korea had said contained the remains of Megumi Yokota, a Japanese woman kidnapped by North Korea, proved that the remains belong to a number of other people. "It would be difficult under such circumstances to provide further assistance to North Korea," says chief cabinet secretary, Hiroyuki Hosoda.

2005

2/2/05 — The New York Times reports that scientific tests have led American intelligence agencies and government scientists to conclude with near certainty that North Korea sold uranium hexaflouride, the material that can be fed into nuclear centrifuges and enriched into bomb fuel, to Libya.

2/10/05 — A rare statement by the North Korean Foreign Ministry says that it has "manufactured nuclear weapons for self-defense" and will "suspend participation in the Six-Party Talks for an indefinite period." The statement asserts that the emphasis on ending tyranny in President Bush's State of the Union address, combined with naming North Korea as an "outpost of tyranny" in Condoleezza Rice's confirmation testimony, indicates that the Bush Administration has intensified its "hostile policy" toward the North.

3/2005 — Sometime in March 2005 (exact date unknown) in Longjing City in Jilin Province, Kang Gun (male, age 36) was reportedly seized by North Korean agents in China and taken to Pyongyang. Kang was a defector from North Korea who had become a South Korean citizen. He was responsible for the footage of the Yoduk political prison camp that aired on Japanese television. Because of his involvement in getting information out about North Korea's political prison camps, it is not known if he is alive or dead.

3/31/05 — A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry releases a statement on the allegation that the U.S. keeps nuclear arms on the Korean peninsula. He writes, "Now that the DPRK has become a full-fledged nuclear weapons state, the Six-Party Talks should be disarmament talks where the participating countries negotiate the issue on an equal footing ... if the Six-Party Talks are to creditably fulfill their mission, it is necessary to convert them into a place where ways are sought to completely remove the U.S. nuclear threat from the peninsula and its vicinity."

4/19/05 — In an interview with USA Today , North Korean deputy ambassador to the United Nations Han Songryol says North Korea has shut down its nuclear reactor and plans to remove the fuel to make bombs and "increase our deterrent" against a possible U.S. attack. It is reported that the CIA has estimated that North Korea possesses from two to eight nuclear bombs; reprocessing this reactor fuel could give it an additional six. Anonymous U.S. and South Korean officials reportedly confirm that the Yongbyon reactor was shut down earlier in April.

4/21/05 — An ethnic Korean from China, Yoo Young-hwa, who is an alleged North Korean agent, was sentenced by the Republic of Korea (ROK or South Korea) to 10 years in prison for his role in the abduction of Kim Dong Shik, a missionary who worked with North Korean refugees in China.

4/24/05 — In remarks carried by KCNA marking the 73 rd anniversary of North Korea's army, Vice Marshal Kim Yong Chun, a member of the North Korean National Defense Commission, says North Korea "... will steadily bolster its nuclear deterrent for self-defense to cope with the enemies' reckless moves for military aggression."

5/1/05 — The BBC reports that North Korea has test-fired a short-range missile into the Sea of Japan. The missile was believed to have traveled about 100 kilometers, or 60 miles, into the sea between the two countries.

5/11/05 — "The DPRK has successfully finished the unloading of 8,000 spent fuel rods from the 5 MW pilot nuclear plant in the shortest period," North Korea's Foreign Ministry said in a statement, according to the Korean Central News Agency.

6/5/05 — The San Jose Mercury News reports that Stanford University Professor John Lewis, returning from his 11 th trip to North Korea, says that senior North Korean officials told him that the United States is trying to goad them into a nuclear test to sour their ties with China and South Korea, that they have restarted construction of the 50-megawatt and 200-megawatt reactors that had been suspended under the 1994 Agreed Framework. The North Koreans also reportedly told Lewis that North Korea had been on the verge of agreeing in mid-May to resume the Six-Party Talks until this move was dashed by comments by senior U.S. officials threatening to take North Korea to the UN Security Council. The officials also reportedly reiterated North Korea's March 31 demand that the talks be expanded in scope to take up peninsular disarmament.

6/30/05 — The Japanese newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun reports that North Korea has resumed construction of a 50,000-kilowatt reactor in Yongbyon and a 200,000-kilowatt one in Thaechon, violating a 1994 agreement with the United States to halt construction on these facilities. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda told a press conference that he was unsure whether Pyongyang is considering using the facilities reportedly under construction "for power generation or production of nuclear weapons."

8/29/05 — North Korea announces that it will delay the return to the Six-Party Talks for two weeks. As reasons for the delay, it blamed U.S. joint military exercises with South Korea and the appointment of Jay Lefkowitz as a Special Envoy on human rights in North Korea. Lefkowitz, a former adviser to President Bush, was to shine a human rights spotlight in international settings on what the administration has called "the long-suffering North Korean people."

9/15/05 — The U.S. Treasury Department designated Banco Delta Asia, a Macau-based bank, as a "primary money laundering concern," charging it with being a "willing pawn" of North Korean counterfeiting and drug trafficking activities.

9/20/05 — A day after the joint statement from all six nations closing the fourth round of six-party talks, North Korea demanded that a light water reactor be fully constructed before it begins dismantling its nuclear program. Washington reiterated its rejection of the reactor demand and joined China in urging North Korea to stick to the agreement announced Monday in which it pledged to abandon all its nuclear programs in exchange for economic aid and security assurances.

11/23/05 — KEDO announced plans to terminate a moth-balled project to build a light-water reactor in North Korea. The program had been frozen since 2002. A day later, Japan demands its money back for the outlay of cash it spent on the light-water reactor. North Korea responded through a foreign ministry spokesman by blaming the U.S. for having overturned a 1994 bilateral agreement that included the project, and demanding that Washington "compensate [North Korea] for the political and economic losses it has caused."

12/12/05 — Pyongyang tells the KEDO Office in Kumho, North Korea, to withdraw all its workers at the nuclear power reactor construction site in the North by early January. After construction work at the site was suspended, the North had blocked KEDO from removing about 20 million dollars' worth of cars, trucks, cranes and other construction equipment, much of it owned by South Korean contractors.

2006

03/10/06 — North Korea test-fires two short-range missiles from a coastal site on the Sea of Japan. According to a South Korea government official, the missiles probably dropped into the sea about 100km away. The direction of the launch could not be confirmed.

07/4/06 — Defying broad international pressure, North Korea test-fires six missiles into the Sea of Japan, including a long-range Taepodong-2 with the theoretical capacity to reach the continental U.S. However, the Taepodong-2 failed 40 seconds into its flight. In a press briefing about the launches, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan stated, "In doing this, the North Koreans have once again isolated themselves. They have defied their neighbors who urged them not to have a launch. The South Koreans, the Japanese and the Chinese all have asked them not to do it. The United States now will work with the other parties in the six-party talks to figure out the appropriate way to move forward. But I think it's fair to say that this is a further indication of isolation on the part of the North Koreans. And it also reminds everybody about the nature of the regime."

07/5/06 — North Korea launches a seventh missile, despite broad international condemnation of the earlier launches.

09/25/06 — Selig S. Harrison, a scholar and a longtime Korea specialist based in Washington, said top North Korean officials whom he met with last week told him they intended to unload fuel rods at the Yongbyon reactor by this fall. The fuel rods can be processed to extract plutonium for nuclear bombs.

10/3/06 — North Korean media carry a DPRK Foreign Ministry statement saying that the DPRK will take "new measures" to strengthen its self-defense capabilities, which includes conducting a "nuclear test."

10/9/06 — North Korea announces that it has carried out an underground nuclear test. It calls the test a "historic event" and says that "It will contribute to defending the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the area around it."

2007

3/23/07 — Negotiations on halting North Korea's nuclear program during the latest of the six-party talks broke down abruptly Thursday, with the country's chief envoy to the talks, Kim Kye Gwan, flying home after a dispute over money frozen in a Macau bank could not be resolved. China issued a statement saying the talks would take a recess but did not give a restart date. The breakdown raises doubts over meeting a deadline in the February 13 agreement that calls for UN inspectors to verify the closure of North Korea's main nuclear reactor at Yongbyon by April 14.