A/HRC/25/CRP.1 standing army with 1.2 million active troops and 7.1 to 8.3 million in paramilitary reserves. It is believed that the DPRK’s military capability has been steadily decreasing due to obsolescence of equipment, difficulty in training, and lowering of standards for soldiers following the overall decline in nutritional status of the population and its subsequent impact on the height of prospective recruits. As the DPRK has experienced this decrease in capability, it has responded by focusing on the development of nuclear weapons and other “asymmetrical forces” such as special operations forces, chemical and biological weapons, and mini-submarines.88 Reportedly, the DPRK has one of the world’s largest stocks of chemical weapons. In addition to destabilizing security in the region and further isolating the DPRK, the drive to be a nuclear state has had profound consequences on resource allocation in the DPRK particularly as parts of the population were already reported to be food insecure for some time.89 138. The DPRK leadership’s decision to develop a nuclear programme in addition to other Songun policies had serious economic and political consequences. Although the 1990s marked an improvement in relations between the DPRK and the United States,90 the DPRK’s first nuclear crisis occurred in May 1994 when the DPRK unloaded fuel rods from the Yongbyon reactor and withdrew from the International Atomic Energy Agency, ejecting its inspectors. This crisis risked derailing progress on the amelioration of relations with the United States. Through negotiations brokered by former United States President Jimmy Carter, the 1994 US-DPRK Agreed Framework provided Kim Jong-il with nonaggression assurances from President Bill Clinton as well as other concessions. 139. The DPRK had always been heavily dependent on assistance from the Soviet Union and China, including for agricultural inputs. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the DPRK also accumulated substantial debt to the Soviet Union and China which it was unwilling or 88 89 90 38 nuclear weapons. In 1977, the DPRK yielded to pressure and agreed to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections of its research reactor developed with the Soviet Union but did not allow access to a second reactor. In 1985, at the behest of the Soviet Union, the DPRK ratified the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), although it refused the safeguard agreement which it did not sign until 1992. Nevertheless, the United States detected nuclear testing in 1985. In 1992, the DPRK and the ROK agreed to the Joint Declaration for a Non-Nuclear Korean Peninsula. However, in 1993 the DPRK failed to implement an agreement with the IAEA for inspection of the DPRK's nuclear facilities and threatened to withdraw from the NPT. Tensions escalated with the United Nations urging the DPRK to cooperate with the IAEA. In 1994, the DPRK triggered the first nuclear crisis by unloading fuel rods from the Yongbyon reactor, withdrawing from the IAEA, and ejecting inspectors. This ultimately resulted in the United States-DPRK Agreed Framework negotiated by former United States President Jimmy Carter. The United States administration under President Bill Clinton provided non-aggression assurances, promised normalization and two light water reactors for a nuclear freeze, reciprocal moves with a timetable including the halt to construction of a 50 megawatt and a 200 megawatt reactor. This first episode appears to have set the pattern whereby the DPRK precipitates a crisis and then negotiates favourable terms for the resolution of the crisis. Asymmetrical forces are those that are more difficult to counter and address perceived weaknesses in the other side. See Joseph S. Bermudez, Jr, Washington Public Hearing, 31 October 2013, afternoon (00:10:00). For details on the DPRK’s obligations to ensure the right to food in the context of defence funding and the development of nuclear weapons, see section IV.D.4. In September 1991, the United States supported the DPRK’s bid to join the United Nations. The United States also withdrew all land and sea tactical nuclear weapons from around the world, including the Korean peninsula. In January 1992, the United States ended its Team Spirit military training exercises that had incensed the DPRK. Later that month, Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs Arnold Kanter met with the Korean Workers’ Party Secretary for International Affairs Kim Yong-sun to discuss improving relations.