In April 1992, delegations from the Inter-Korean Joint Nuclear Control Commission sat face-to-face at the Peace House on the South Korean side of Panmunjom.
The meeting was held ahead of negotiations on regulations for mutual nuclear facility inspections, but tensions were already high before the talks even began.
[Gong Ro-myung / South Korean Representative to the Inter-Korean Joint Nuclear Control Commission: A knife can be useful if used well, but if used poorly, it cuts your hand. It is the same.]
[Choe U-jin / North Korean Representative to the Inter-Korean Joint Nuclear Control Commission: Listening to what Mr. Gong said, it sounds like we should keep holding onto nuclear weapons in the future.]
At the time, the Cold War was coming to an end, and the United States had announced the withdrawal of tactical nuclear weapons from South Korea, followed by the South Korean government's declaration of a nuclear-free status.
The approximately 3,800 pages of meeting documents released by the Ministry of Unification today (June 30) contain a detailed record of the 32 intense rounds of negotiations on nuclear issues held between the two Koreas from December 1991 to January 1993.
North Korea denied allegations that it was building a reprocessing facility in Yongbyon, while instead pressuring the South to allow inspections of U.S. military bases in South Korea.
In October 1992, the North Korean delegation reportedly raised its voice, telling the South, "You must not deny the fact that there are U.S. nuclear weapons and nuclear bases," and demanding that the South not "evade inspections" and undergo them in good faith.
During a meeting in May of the same year, the North claimed that the Yongbyon facility was merely a "small test reactor" that "simply exists." The South Korean delegation did not remain silent in the face of the North's strategy of feigned ignorance.
Lim Dong-won, the South Korean representative at the time, retorted, "You are negotiating without even knowing whether there is nuclear material or not," and records show he even slammed his hand on the table.
Unlike today, the North mentioned unification and the nation in almost every meeting, and when the South raised suspicions, the North mocked them by asking if they were simply repeating what the U.S. said.
In these first nuclear negotiations between the two Koreas over 30 years ago, both sides remained at a stalemate regarding inspection regulations throughout the process and ultimately failed to produce any results.
[Park Yong-han / Senior Research Fellow at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses (Reviewer for the released meeting documents): At the time, North Korea focused its discussions on whether the nuclear weapons deployed with U.S. forces in South Korea had been completely dismantled, and I believe they had a strong intention to engage in dialogue with the IAEA while excluding South Korea from the negotiations.]
The original texts of the inter-Korean meeting documents released this time can be viewed at the Inter-Korean Dialogue Headquarters and the North Korea Information Center under the Ministry of Unification.
Reported by Kim Ayeong | Video by Choi Hye-young | Produced by SBS Digital News
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