October 2002: US says it has evidence of a secret uranium-enrichment programme in North Korea, in defiance of the 1994 agreed framework between Washington and Pyongyang, which stated that the latter would renounce enriching uranium and would receive oil and light water nuclear power reactors from the US instead.

November 2002: George W. Bush, US president, announces that oil shipments will cease if North Korea pursues developing nuclear weapons.