This report summarizes what is known from open sources about the North Korean nuclear weapons program — including weapons-usable fissile material and warhead estimates — and assesses current developments in achieving denuclearization.

This report provides background information on the negotiations over North Korea's nuclear weapons program that began in the early 1990s under the Clinton Administration. As U.S. policy toward Pyongyang evolved through the George W. Bush presidency and into the Obama Administration, the negotiations moved from mostly bilateral to the multilateral Six-Party Talks (made up of China, Japan, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, and the United States).