According to legend, the god-king Tangun founded the Korean nation in BC 2333. By the first century AD, the Korean Peninsula was divided into the kingdoms of Silla, Koguryo, and Paekche. In 668 AD, the Silla kingdom unified the peninsula. The Koryo Dynasty (from which Portuguese missionaries in the 16th century derived the Western name "Korea") succeeded the Silla kingdom in 935. The Choson Dynasty (ruled by members of the Yi clan) supplanted Koryo in 1392 and lasted until the Japanese annexed Korea in 1910. Throughout most of its history, Korea has been invaded, influenced, and fought over by its larger neighbors. Korea was under Mongolian occupation from 1231 until the early 14th century and was plundered by Japanese pirates in 1359 and 1361. The unifier of Japan, Hideyoshi, launched major invasions of Korea in 1592 and 1597. When Western powers focused "gunboat" diplomacy on Korea in the mid-19th century, Korea's rulers adopted a closed-door policy, earning Korea the title of "Hermit Kingdom."

Though the Choson dynasty paid fealty to the Chinese court and recognized China's hegemony in East Asia, Korea was in fact independent until the late 19th century. At that time, China sought to block growing Japanese influence on the Korean Peninsula and Russian pressure for commercial gains there. This competition produced the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. Japan emerged victorious from both wars and in 1910 annexed Korea into the growing Japanese empire.

Japanese colonial administration was characterized by tight control from Tokyo and ruthless efforts to supplant Korean language and culture. Organized Korean resistance during the Colonial Era--such as the March 1, 1919 Independence Movement--was unsuccessful and Japan remained firmly in control until the end of World War II.

At Japan's surrender in August 1945, Korea was liberated from Japan, but its fate was left to the two big victors of the war, the U.S. and the Soviet Union. First, at Cairo, they agreed that Korea would be free "in due course" and then, at Yalta, it was agreed to establish a four-power trusteeship over Korea. However, the unexpected early surrender of Japan led to the division of Korea into two occupation zones, with the U.S. administering the southern half of the Korean Peninsula and the USSR taking over the area to the north of the 38th parallel.

The division was intended to be temporary to facilitate the Japanese surrender and until the U.S., UK, Soviet Union, and China could organize a trusteeship administration arrangement. In December 1945 the Moscow Conference convened to discuss the future handling of Korea. A five-year trusteeship for Korea was discussed and a Joint Soviet-American Commission was established. The commission met intermittently in Seoul but deadlocked over the issue of establishing a national government and in September 1947, with no solution in sight, the United States submitted the Korean question to the UN General Assembly.

The initial hopes for Korean independence quickly evaporated as the politics of the Cold War and domestic opposition to the trusteeship plan resulted in two separate nations with diametrically opposed political, economic, and social systems.

Korean Conflict

The Soviet Union and Korean authorities in the north refused to comply with the UN General Assembly's November 1947 resolution on elections and blocked entry of the United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea (UNTCOK) into the north. Despite this refusal, elections were held in the south under UN observation, and on August 15, 1948, the Republic of Korea was established in the south. Syngman Rhee, a Korean nationalist leader, became the Republic's first president. On September 9, 1948, the north established the Democratic People's Republic of Korea headed by then-Premier Kim Il Sung, known for his anti-Japanese guerrilla activities in Manchuria during the 1930s. Both administrations claimed to be the only legitimate government on the peninsula.

After the establishment of the two states, South Korea experienced several violent uprisings by indigenous, pro-North Korean leftist guerrillas. As Soviet troops left in late 1948 and the U.S. troops in the spring of 1949, border clashes along the 38th parallel intensified.

North Korean forces invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950. The United Nations, in accordance with the terms of its Charter, engaged in its first collective action, and established the UN Command (UNC), to which 16 member nations sent troops and assistance. Next to the Republic of Korea forces, the United States contributed the largest contingent to this international effort. The battle line fluctuated back and forth from south to north and after large numbers of Chinese "people's volunteers" intervened to assist the north, the battle line stabilized north of Seoul near the 38th parallel.

Armistice negotiations began in July 1951, but hostilities continued until July 27, 1953. On that date, at Panmunjom, the military commanders of the North Korean People's Army, the Chinese People's Volunteers, and the UNC signed an armistice agreement. Neither the United States nor South Korea is a signatory to the armistice per se, although both adhere to it through the UNC.

The armistice called for an international conference to find a political solution to the problem of Korea's division. This conference met at Geneva in April 1954 but, after seven weeks of futile debate, ended without agreement or progress. No comprehensive peace agreement has replaced the 1953 armistice pact; thus, a condition of belligerency still exists on the peninsula.

The Military Armistice Commission (MAC) was created in 1953 to oversee and enforce the terms of the armistice. The Neutral Nation Supervisory Committee (NNSC)--originally made up of delegations from Poland and Czechoslovakia on the DPRK/Chinese People's Volunteers side and Sweden and Switzerland on the UN side--monitors the activities of the MAC. In recent years, North Korea has sought to dismantle the MAC in its push for a new "peace mechanism" on the peninsula. In April 1994 it declared the MAC void and withdrew its representatives. Prior to this it had forced the Czechs out of the NNSC by refusing to accept the Czech Republic as the successor state of Czechoslovakia, an original member of the NNSC. In September 1994, at the DPRK's urging, China "recalled" the Chinese People's Volunteers representatives to the MAC, and in early 1995 North Korea forced Poland to remove its representatives to the NNSC from the North Korean side of the DMZ.

Military

North Korea now has the fourth largest army in the world. The North has an estimated 1.2 million armed personnel, compared to about 650,000 in the South. North Korean forces have a substantial numerical advantage (approximately 2 or 3 to 1) in several key categories of offensive weapons--tanks, long-range artillery, and armored personnel carriers. The North has perhaps the world's second largest special operations force (55,000) designed for insertion behind the lines in wartime. While the North has a relatively impressive fleet of submarines, its surface fleet has a very limited capability. Its aging air force has twice the number of aircraft, but except for a few advanced fighters, the North's air force is obsolete. The North (and the South) deploys the bulk of its forces well forward, along the DMZ. Several military tunnels under the DMZ discovered in the 1970s.

Over the last several years, North Korea has moved even more of its rear echelon troops to hardened bunkers closer to the DMZ. Given the proximity of Seoul to the DMZ (some 25 miles), South Korean and U.S. forces are likely to have little warning of any attack. The United States and ROK continue to believe that the U.S. troop presence remains an effective deterrent against North Korean aggression.

Terrorism

The DPRK is not known to have sponsored any terrorist acts since 1987, when a KAL airliner was bombed in flight. The DPRK has made several statements condemning terrorism, most recently a May 1994 Foreign Ministry spokesman statement "opposing any act encouraging and supporting terrorism." The DPRK and ROK pledged in their 1991 reconciliation agreement to "refrain from all acts destroying and overthrowing the other side" and not use arms against one another. North Korea appears to be respecting a promise to the Philippine Government to suspend its support for the Communist New People's Army (NPA).

Normalization talks with Japan have been complicated by North Korea's refusal to respond to questions concerning the status of a Korean resident of Japan allegedly kidnapped by North Koreans to teach Japanese to DPRK agents. Pyongyang continues to provide sanctuary to members of the Japanese Communist League-Red Army Faction who participated in the hijacking of a Japanese airlines flight to North Korea in 1970.

Reunification Policy

Throughout the postwar period, both Korean Governments have repeatedly affirmed their desire to reunify the Korean Peninsula, but until 1971 the two governments had no direct, official communications or other contact.

In August 1971, North and South Korea agreed to hold talks through their respective Red Cross societies with the aim of reuniting the many Korean families separated following the division of Korea and the Korean War. Following a series of secret meetings, both sides announced, on July 4, 1972, an agreement to work toward peaceful reunification and an end to the hostile atmosphere prevailing on the peninsula. Officials exchanged visits, and regular communications were established through a South- North Coordinating Committee and the Red Cross. However, these initial contacts broke down and ended one year later after the kidnapping of Kim Dae Jung from Tokyo by the ROK intelligence service and there was no other significant contact between North and South Korea until 1984.

The breakdown of these talks characterized the start-stop, halting nature of inter-Korean dialogue. Basic differences in approach-- Pyongyang then insisting on immediate steps toward reunification before discussing specific, concrete issues and Seoul maintaining that, given the long history of mutual distrust, reunification must be a gradual, step-by-step process--made improved North-South relations an elusive aim.

Dialogue was renewed on several fronts, in September 1984, when South Korea accepted the North's offer to provide relief goods to victims of severe flooding in South Korea. Red Cross talks to address the plight of separated families resumed, as did talks on economic and trade issues, and parliamentary-level discussions. However, the North then unilaterally suspended all talks in January 1986, arguing that the annual ROK/U.S. Team Spirit military exercise was inconsistent with dialogue. There was a brief flurry of negotiations on cohosting the 1988 Seoul Olympics that ended in failure--and was followed by the KAL 858 bombing.

In a major initiative in July 1988, South Korean President Roh Tae Woo called for new efforts to promote South-North exchanges, family reunification, inter-Korean trade, and contact in international fora. Roh followed up this initiative in a UN General Assembly speech in which Seoul offered for the first time to discuss security matters with the North.

The first meetings that grew out of Roh's proposals began in September 1989. In September 1990, the first of eight Prime Minister-level meetings between the North Korean and South Korean Prime Ministers took place in Seoul beginning an especially fruitful period of dialogue. The Prime Ministerial talks resulted in two major agreements: the Agreement on Reconciliation, Nonaggression, Exchanges, and Cooperation (the Basic Agreement) and the Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula (the Joint Declaration).

The Basic Agreement, signed on December 13, 1991, called for reconciliation and nonaggression and established four commissions. The four Joint Commissions--on South-North Reconciliation, South-North Military Affairs, South-North Economic Exchanges and Cooperation, and South-North Social and Cultural Exchange--were to work out the specifics for implementing the general terms of the Basic Agreement. Subcommittees to examine specific issues were created and liaison offices were established in Panmunjom, but in the Autumn of 1992 the process came to a halt because of rising tension over the nuclear issue.

The Declaration on Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula (Joint Declaration), initialed on December 31, 1991, forbade both sides to test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deploy or use nuclear weapons, and forbade the possession of nuclear reprocessing and uranium enrichment facilities. A procedure for inter-Korean inspection was to be organized and a South-North Joint Nuclear Control Commission (JNCC) was mandated with verification of the denuclearization of the peninsula. On January 30, 1992, the DPRK also signed a nuclear safeguards agreement with the IAEA as it had pledged to do in 1985 when joining the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This safeguards agreement allowed IAEA inspections to begin in June 1992. In March 1992, the JNCC was established in accordance with the Joint Declaration; but subsequent meetings failed to agree on the main issue of establishing a bilateral inspection regime.

As the 1990s progressed, concern over the North's nuclear program became a major issue in South-North relations and between North Korea and the U.S. The lack of progress on implementation of the Joint Nuclear Declaration's provision for an inter-Korean nuclear inspection regime led to reinstatement of the U.S.-ROK Team Spirit military exercise for 1993. The situation worsened rapidly when North Korea, in January 1993, refused IAEA access to two suspected nuclear waste sites, and then, announced its intent to withdraw from the NPT in March 1993.

U.S.-DPRK talks on the North's nuclear program began in June 1993 and resulted in a joint declaration in which the North suspended its withdrawal from the NPT and laid the groundwork for continuing U.S.-DPRK talks. The complex negotiations deadlocked and in the spring of 1994 the DPRK created a crisis by unloading fuel from its 5 MW reactor. The United States responded by initiating consultations concerning UN sanctions. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter visited the DPRK, and in July a further round of U.S.-DPRK talks on the nuclear issue was begun. These talks were recessed with news of the death of Kim Il Sung on July 8, 1994. They resumed in August and proceeded until the conclusion of the U.S.-DPRK "Agreed Framework" on October 21, 1994. (see the section on "U.S. Policy Towards North Korea.")

Prospects for Reunification

South and North Korea have had a difficult and acrimonious relationship in the forty years that have followed the Korean War. They have yet to have a Presidential-level summit. During former President Carter's visit, Kim Il Sung agreed to a first-ever South-North summit. The two sides went ahead with plans for a meeting in July but had to shelve it because of Kim's death.

The two Koreas have begun to develop economic ties. Following the ROK Government's 1988 decision to allow trade with the DPRK, South Korean firms began to import North Korean goods. Direct trade with the South began in the fall of 1990 after the unprecedented September 1990 meeting of the two Korean Prime Ministers. Trade between the two increased from $18.8 million in 1989 to $174 million in 1992.

During this period, Daewoo's chairman, Kim Woo Choong, visited the North and an agreement was created to build a light industrial complex at Nampo. In other negotiations there were discussions to develop tourism and build road and rail links in Korea. Economic contacts continued to develop until the spring of 1993 when North Korea's withdrawal from the NPT slowed the expansion of North-South economic cooperation. South Korean President Kim Young Sam prohibited substantial direct investment in the North until the nuclear issue was resolved, although inter-Korean trade continued with South Korea becoming one of the DPRK's largest trading partners. With the signing of the U.S.-DPRK Agreed Framework on October 21, 1994, President Kim announced he would again allow discussions for investments.

GOVERNMENT

North Korea has a centralized government under the rigid control of the communist Korean Worker's Party (KWP). Kim Il Sung, commonly referred to as "Great Leader", dominated the government from 1948 until his death in July 1994. Kim served both as Secretary General of the KWP and as President of North Korea. A few minor parties are allowed to exist in name only, presumably to present a facade of representative government to the outside world.

The 1972 Constitution was reportedly amended in late 1992, but the North has never publicized the changes. The DPRK government is led by the president and in theory a super-cabinet called the Central People's Committee (CPC). Officially, the legislature, the Supreme People's Assembly (SPA), is the highest organ of state power. Its members are elected every four years. Usually only two meetings are held annually, each lasting a few days. A standing committee elected by the SPA performs legislative functions when the assembly is not in session. In reality, the assembly serves only to ratify decisions made by the ruling KWP. The constitution designates the Central People's Committee (CPC) as the government's top policymaking body. It is headed by the President who also nominates the other committee members. The CPC makes policy decisions and supervises the cabinet or State Administration Council (SAC). The SAC is headed by a premier and is the dominant administrative and executive agency. The judiciary is "accountable" to the SPA and the President. The SPA's Standing Committee also appoints judges to the highest court for four-year terms that are concurrent with those of the assembly.

Politically, North Korea is divided into nine provinces and four provincial-level municipalities--Pyongyang, Chongjin, Nampo, and Kaesong. It also appears to be divided into nine military districts.

Little is known about the actual lines of power and authority in the North Korean Government despite the formal structure set forth in the constitution. Following the death of Kim Il Sung, his son, Kim Jong Il, appears to have inherited supreme power. However, a year after his father's death, Kim Jong Il has not formally assumed Kim Il Sung's two main titles: President and Secretary General of the KWP. An inner core of ranking members of the Korean Workers' Party, including an increasing number of Kim Jong Il's followers, dominates the political system and the economy through an elaborate party structure and through the civilian and military bureaucracies. A pervasive personality cult has developed around Kim Jong Il, 52, who was groomed for many years to succeed his father.