North Korea building its global contacts

NKorea building its global contacts
By JAE-SOON CHANG, Associated Press Writer
13 minutes ago

SEOUL, South Korea - Buoyed by progress in its nuclear standoff,
reclusive North Korea has begun reaching out to the world beyond its
closed borders, forging formal relations with a series of countries
and sending high-level delegations overseas.


The communist nation has opened or restored relations with five
countries since July. Senior officials have visited Russia, southeast
Asia, Africa and the Middle East - a rare burst of international
activity move by one of the world's most isolated nations.

Analysts say the main reason for the drive is that Pyongyang - branded
as part of an "axis of evil" by President Bush - wants to show
Washington it can behave like a "normal" country.

"North Korea had judged that the U.S. was squeezing its throat. But
now, confidence is building as efforts to resolve the nuclear issue
speed up," said Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk
University.

Progress in the nuclear issue has enabled Pyongyang to focus on
diplomacy with other countries because it is no longer preoccupied
with fears that the U.S. is attempting to topple the regime, Kim said.

Pyongyang shut down its sole functioning nuclear reactor in July, and
a team of U.S. nuclear experts is set to visit the North this week to
start disabling the facility by year-end.

"By broadening its external relations, the North also wants to show
the U.S. the look of a normal country," he said. "The idea is that:
'We've been so closed because of you, but if you go easy on us like
this, we can also act like other ordinary countries.'"

In September, North Korea established diplomatic relations with the
United Arab Emirates, Swaziland, the Dominican Republic and Guatemala.
Pyongyang also has opened ties with Montenegro and in recent months
restored relations with Myanmar and Nicaragua.

The North still does not have relations with the U.S., although it
does with the other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -
Britain, China, France and Russia.

On Monday, the North's main state-controlled Rodong Sinmun newspaper
touted the expanding relations as a "great diplomatic success" and
said the country wants to develop relations with any friendly
countries that respect it.

"It has become an irresistible trend of the times that the
international interest in the (North) is growing deep day by day and
many countries wish to improve and develop their relations with" the
North, the paper said.

The communist country has also sent several high-level delegations to
foreign countries.

In July, the country's No. 2 leader, Kim Yong Nam, visited Mongolia,
Russia, Algeria, Egypt, Singapore and Ethiopia. Since last week, the
country's premier, Kim Yong Il, has been to Vietnam, Malaysia,
Cambodia and Laos.

Although North Korea has diplomatic relations with 160 countries, it
is still considered one of the world's most isolated nations, as most
of its ties remain nominal and include only minimal trade and
exchanges.

China is the only major ally of Pyongyang, and the North's trade with
its neighbor accounts for more than half its total foreign trade.

The North's recent diplomatic rush may be aimed at silencing criticism
from hard-line U.S. officials opposed to taking Pyongyang off
Washington's blacklist of nations sponsoring terrorism, said Yang Moo-
jin, a professor at Seoul's University of North Korean Studies.

That has been a key demand of the North, which views the designation,
which effectively bars it from taking out low-interest development
loans from international lenders, as a sign of hostility.

Progress in the nuclear issue has even spawned friendly gestures
between the two countries that fought in the 1950-53 Korean War.

The North's taekwondo demonstration team made its first-ever visit to
the U.S. in September, and officials from the New York Philharmonic
visited Pyongyang in October to consider a possible concert there next
year.

This week, the U.S. Navy assisted the crew of North Korean cargo ship
after they clashed with Somali pirates, sending a helicopter to the
scene and treating wounded North Koreans on a U.S. destroyer.

Kim, the Dongguk University professor, said such moves echoed
Washington's "pingpong diplomacy" with China that eventually led to
then-President Richard Nixon's landmark 1972 visit to Beijing.

Still, he said, the key to normal Washington-Pyongyang ties will
always lie with disarmament.

"Everything depends on the nuclear issue," Kim said.

.

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