In the early 1990s there were again signs of rapprochement between the two Koreas. North-South relations appeared to reach a milestone when a pact of reconciliation and nonaggression was signed in December 1991. Earlier that year, North Korea had retreated from its insistence on a single Korean membership in the United Nations, and the two states were separately admitted to the UN on September 17. North Korea’s potential nuclear weapons capabilities emerged as a source of anxiety for the South shortly thereafter. With the death of the North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung in July 1994, hope was rekindled for further reconciliation and for a peaceful reunification of the peninsula, and in October the nuclear issue appeared settled when the North agreed to close an experimental nuclear reactor in exchange for the United States arranging for the financing and construction of two reactors capable of producing electrical power.
