N. Korea’s ways to get what it wants, needs

Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea

North Korea has been condemned and sanctioned for its nuclear ambitions, yet has still received food, fuel and other aid from its neighbors and adversaries for decades. How does the small, isolated country keep getting what it wants and needs?

Some put its success down to the extraordinary nuclear blackmail skills of a country whose leaders could be buying food instead of bombs and missiles. Some see the willingness of outsiders to help people in desperate need, and others credit the feeling in South Korea that aid could improve ties.

A look at how a country that frustrates and infuriates much of the world manages to get what it wants:

A relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons has been a major source of the country’s ability to pull in aid and concessions. Since the North Korean nuclear crisis first started in 1993, its government has agreed to several now-dormant disarmament-for-aid deals.

During the Sunshine Era of inter-Korean detente from 1998 to 2008, liberals in Seoul espoused greater reconciliation. This was welcome in North Korea, which had depended on outside handouts to feed many of its 24 million people and revive an economy devastated by a famine.

China is widely seen as crucial to U.S.-led efforts to strip North Korea of atomic bombs. China accounts for about 90 percent of North Korea’s trade, and it sends about 500,000 tons of crude oil to North Korea, mostly for free, every year.