PBS FRONTLINE: KIM'S NUCLEAR GAMBLE 3 OF 3

PBS FRONTLINE: KIM'S NUCLEAR GAMBLE PART 3 OF 3

Foreign Relations

In 1998, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung implemented a Sunshine policy (Haetpyŏt chŏngch'aek) to improve North-South relations and to allow South Korean companies to start projects in the North. Kim Jong-il announced plans to import and develop new technologies to develop North Korea's fledgling software industry. As a result of the new policy, the Kaesong Industrial Park was constructed in 2003 just north of the inter-Korean border, with the planned participation of 250 South Korean companies, employing 100,000 North Koreans, by 2007. However, by March 2007, the Park contained only 21 companies - employing 12,000 North Korean workers.

In 1994, North Korea and the United States signed an Agreed Framework which was designed to freeze and eventually dismantle the North's nuclear weapons program in exchange for aid in producing two power-generating nuclear reactors. In 2002, Kim Jong-il's government admitted to having produced nuclear weapons since the 1994 agreement. Kim's regime argued the secret production was necessary for security purposes - citing the presence of United States owned nuclear weapons in South Korea and the new tensions with the U.S. under President George W Bush.

Internal Politics

North Korea remains silent on the issue of an appointed successor. South Korean media have suggested that he is grooming his son, Kim Jong-chul; however, Kim Yong Hyun, a political expert at the Institute for North Korean Studies at Seoul's Dongguk University, believes any appointee would be outside the family. "Even the North Korean establishment would not advocate a continuation of the family dynasty at this point." His eldest son, Kim Jong-nam, was earlier believed to be the designated heir, but he appears to have fallen out of favor after being arrested at Narita International Airport in Narita, Japan, near Tokyo, in 2001 while traveling on a forged passport.