North Korea, a bit less "evil," may try to open up

By Jonathan Thatcher - Analysis

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea, off the U.S. list of states that foment terrorism, may now try to edge its way into the world economy but analysts say a leadership that views change as a threat to its survival shows no hunger for reform.

Some say Pyongyang may now see an opportunity to try to balance a growing, and probably unwelcome, dominance of its economy by China.

One of the few states that can claim to have escaped the storm now tearing through world economies, North Korea has long tucked itself inside an ideological cocoon that treats self-reliance as its greatest virtue even if it has brought decades of destitution, and at times famine.

The global downturn, however, could well mean that if Pyongyang, now mending fences with the outside world over its nuclear weapons ambitions, feels it is time to be less coy, it may find potential economic partners too wrapped up in their own problems to take much notice of the impoverished state.

Last week Washington removed North Korea from its list of governments that sponsor terrorism, which had helped earn its place on President George W. Bush's "axis of evil." This lifted one major deterrent to doing business with a country still under United Nations sanctions and where even the transfer of money abroad except in a suitcase can be a challenge.

SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPMENT

"This is really a significant development," Paik Hak-soon, a North Korea analyst at the South's Sejong Institute, said of its dropping from the decades-old U.S. list.

"North Korea definitely wants to get international help. They've been trying to get aid for a long time ... but everything will move very slowly. It's an incremental process," he added.