N. Korea, Without the Rancor

This North Korean, an affable man in his late 50s who spent much of his career as a diplomat in Europe, has been assigned to help his communist country attract foreign investment. With the U.S. and other countries complaining about North Korea's nuclear weapons program and its human rights record, it's a difficult task, he admitted.

"There's never been a positive article about North Korea, not one," he said. "We're portrayed as monsters, inhuman, Dracula

So, in an effort to clear up misunderstandings, he expounded on the North Korean view of the world in an informal conversation that began one night this week over beer as North Korean waitresses sang Celine Dion in the karaoke restaurant, and resumed the next day over coffee.

The North Korean, dressed in a cranberry-colored flannel shirt and corduroy trousers, described himself as a businessman with close ties to the government. He said he did not want to be quoted by name because his perspective was personal, not official. Because North Koreans seldom talk to U.S. media organizations, his comments offered rare insight into the view from the other side of the geopolitical divide.

He said better relations with the United States were key to turning around his nation's economy, which has nearly ground to a halt over the last decade amid famine, the collapse of industry and severe electricity shortages. "For basic life, we can live without America, but we can live better with" it, he said.

Yet he voiced strong enthusiasm for his country's recent announcement that it had developed nuclear weapons. The declaration, which jarred U.S. officials, was not intended as a threat, he said, but merely a way to advance negotiations.

"Now that we are members of the nuclear club, we can start talking on an equal footing. In the past, the U.S. tried to whip us, as though they were saying, 'Little boy, don't play with dangerous things.' "

A colleague, a 55-year-old man also visiting from North Korea, nodded.

"This was the right thing to do, to declare ourselves a nuclear power. The U.S. had been talking not only about economic sanctions, but regime change," the businessman said. "We can't just sit there waiting for them to do something. We have the right to protect ourselves."