The mainstream-propaganda media keeps screaming that North Korea cannot be trusted to keep its word. Yet it was the US that violated the 1953 Korean War armistice agreement by nuclearizing the Korean peninsula. In 1957 President Dwight D. Eisenhower equipped US forces in Korea with "dual capability (nuclear) weapons, such as the Honest John and the 280 mm. cannon ", in violation of section 13 (d). The US had at least 950 nuclear weapons in South Korea until President George H. W. Bush said that he withdrew them in 1991. The US still has plenty of nuclear weapons in the air and on the sea that it constantly uses to threaten North Korea.
During the Korean War General Douglas MacArthur wanted to use 30 nukes on North Korea and China. President Truman fired him, but not because MacArthur wanted to use nukes. Truman wanted a "responsible" general in charge of nuking North Korea and China. Truman preauthorized MacArthur's replacement, General Matthew Ridgeway, to use nuclear bombs at his discretion. Ridgeway avoided World War Three by not using them, although Truman had sent him nuclear bombs to Okinawa for that purpose.
It was Truman that used atomic bombs on Japan for the sole reason of demonstrating US power to Joseph Stalin. Truman divided Korea in 1945 so that the US could establish a colony in the South. Truman intervened in the Korean Civil War before the United Nations authorized it, and he publicly threatened to use the atomic bomb in the Korean War. Truman started the Cold War with his 1947 Truman Doctrine, which would later nearly result in the destruction of the planet in a nuclear holocaust.
Fast forward to the 1990s. The Soviet Union collapses and there is a pause in the Cold War. North Korea has lost Russia as its most important sources of foreign aid and one of its major markets for exports. Between 1994 and 1998 North Korea is hit with a series of droughts and floods. The combinations of crop failures and the loss of Russian aid created famines and starvation in North Korea. US propaganda accuses North Korea of starving its people "in order to stay in power", while the US is imposing economic sanctions that causes more starvation. US intelligence agencies predicted that North Korea would soon collapse because of the sanctions. But the US had an immediate concern with North Korea's nuclear program.
The Clinton administration had a very tense confrontation with North Korea in 1994 over North Korea's nuclear program, much like the "fire and fury" of 2017. The US accused North Korea of working on nuclear weapons. North Korea has to import almost all of its oil and claimed that it was developing nuclear power for electricity. North Korea has a legal right to nuclear reactors just as Japan, South Korea and every other country have. War was averted when North Korea and the Clinton administration negotiated an agreement called the Agreed Framework.
Under the Agreed Framework North Korea agreed not to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, open itself to extensive IAEA inspection and to freeze its nuclear program. In return the Clinton administration promised to compensate North Korea with the delivery of oil for electric generation and the construction of two light-water nuclear reactors, which produce electricity but not weapons-grade plutonium. The US also agreed to the suspension of military exercises, and the normalization of diplomatic relations. If the Agreed Framework sounds familiar, it should. It is now where we are heading after the Kim Jong-un and Trump summit in Singapore.
What went wrong with the Agreed Framework? First, Clinton came under heavy criticism by Republicans and hardliners. They accused him of appeasement and caving in to blackmail. Clinton responded that the US would never have to deliver on its promises, because North Korea was on the verge of an economic disintegration of its regime. The US dragged its feet on the delivery of oil to North Korea and delayed the construction of the promised light-water reactors.
Second, the US Congress refused to fund the US obligations under the Agreed Framework. Congress also refused to lift the economic sanctions against North Korea. North Korea responded that it would withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and resume its nuclear program if the US did not fulfill its obligation. Clinton could not keep his promise even if he wanted to, just as Trump may not be able to keep any of his promises to North Korea.
The final breakdown of the Agreed Framework came in 2002 when President George W. Bush declared that North Korea was an Axis of Evil. He accused North Korea of secretly working on a nuclear bomb in violation of the Agreed Framework and stopped the delivery of oil and the construction of the two light-water nuclear reactors. In response North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and began working on its nuclear program, which it had every right to do under international law.
Conclusion
The US has been threatening the Democratic People's Republic of Korea with nuclear weapons, conventional weapons and financial weapons of mass destruction since 1953. It is a violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty for a nuclear-power country to threaten a non-nuclear-power country. North Korea had a legal right to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty because of US threats. North Korea developed nuclear weapons and ICBM's for self-defense against the US and its colony South Korea. North Korea is not in violation of international law by having nuclear weapons and missiles.
The US has threatened North Korea with "fire and fury" if it does not denuclearize. To avoid an attack by the US, North Korea offered to negotiate its denuclearization in return for promises by the US of non-aggression.
North Korea can never trust promises of the US. What one president agrees to another can take away, just as Trump violated Obama's Iran Nuclear Deal and Bush reneged on the Agreed Framework of 1994. Trump also reversed Obama's opening with Cuba.
The US has a long history of breaking treaties and violating international law. The US invaded Afghanistan with flimsy evidence that Afghanistan was harboring terrorists that were responsible for the attacks on the US of September 11, 2001.
Afghanistan had agreed to cooperate with the US if the US would provide it with evidence that Osama bin Laden was responsible for 9-11. The US refused and invaded Afghanistan anyway.
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