North Korean Missile Launches:
The US has imposed its first sanctions over North Korea’s weapons programs following a series of North Korean missile launches.
- These sanctions were aimed both to prevent the advancement of North Korea’s programs and to impede its attempts to proliferate weapons technologies.
- North Korea is continuing its missile program despite several UN Security Council resolutions and the international community’s calls for diplomacy and denuclearization.
- The present-day conflict between the US and North Korea can be traced from the Cold War between the USSR and US.
- After the defeat of Japan in World War II, the Allied forces at the Yalta Conference (1945), agreed to establish a “four-power trusteeship over Korea”.
- The fear of the spread of communism (state ownership over economic resources of a country) and the mutual distrust between the USSR and the US led to the failure of the trusteeship plan.
- Before a concrete plan could be formulated, the USSR invaded Korea.
- This led to a condition where the north of Korea was under the USSR and the south under the rest of the allies, mainly the US.
- The Korean peninsula was divided into two regions by the 38th parallel.
- In 1948 the United Nations proposed free elections across all of Korea.
- The USSR rejected this plan and the northern part was declared as Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea).
- The election took place in the American protectorate resulting in the establishment of the Republic of Korea (South Korea).
- Both North Korea and South Korea tried to enhance their reach, territorially and ideologically, which gave birth to the Korean Conflict.
