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NTI Website Resources on North Korea
updated June 26, 2009
On May 25, 2009, North Korea's Korean Central News Agency announced that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) had carried out a nuclear test intended to "contribute to safeguarding our sovereignty and socialism and guaranteeing peace and safety on the Korean peninsula and the surrounding region."
According to some estimates, the event corresponds to an explosive yield of about 3 to 8 kilotons TNT equivalent with a most likely yield of 4 kt TNT. It is notable that no xenon or krypton particles have been detected in the atmosphere that would positively confirm a nuclear detonation. The DPRK's first nuclear test in October 2006 had an estimated yield of 0.5 to 0.8 kt TNT; after this test nuclear particles were detected shortly after the test.
Following the detonation, North Korea test-fired a series of short range missiles.
On June 12, the UN Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1874 that imposed new sanctions on North Korea. This resolution calls on countries to reduce financial dealings with North Korea and further extends the ban on North Korean exports of military materials set forth in earlier UNSCR resolutions. The resolution also allows for inspections of its cargo vessels on the high seas.
Even as the UN Security Council met to consider the draft resolution, CNN, citing an unnamed US government official, reported that North Korea appeared to be preparing for another nuclear test, its third since 2006.
Progress at the Six-Party Talks--multilateral negotiations aimed at dismantling North Korea's nuclear weapons program--has been painstakingly slow and uneven over the years. The latest round of the Talks, which closed in December 2008, failed to produce any results. When the international community condemned DPRK’s April 2009 Taepodong-2 ballistic missile test, Pyongyang withdrew from the Talks and pledged to conduct a nuclear test and to begin reprocessing plutonium from its Yongbyon nuclear facility.
