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International News Title: Analysts: NKorea’s Kim trying to strike US deal After apparently suffering a stroke last summer, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il seems to want to get President Barack Obama's attention _ and fast. Analysts say the reclusive dictator, who turns 67 on Monday, sees Obama's four-year term as a last chance to secure a better legacy before his health worsens. That, they add, explains North Korea's recent saber-rattling, from stoking tensions with South Korea to making what may be preparations for a long-range missile test. "The North's recent moves show Kim's impatience," said Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University. After 15 years in power, Kim has little to boast of other than nuclear weapons. The country's economy is in shambles, and his atomic ambitions have deepened the nation's international isolation. Analysts say Kim wants to settle the two biggest challenges his regime faces _ a long-running nuclear standoff with the United States and the dilapidated economy _ before handing a stronger country to one of his three sons, and his reported health scare has made it all the more urgent. South Korean and U.S. officials say Kim suffered a stroke in August and underwent surgery. He was out of sight for months but in January met a visiting Chinese official amid speculation his health has improved. Kim appears to be trying to achieve the goal no later than 2012, by which time the regime promised its hunger-stricken people better lives and, coincidentally, the year Obama's term winds down. Kim's goal is to squeeze concessions from Washington while negotiating an end to the nuclear row, analysts say. Kim himself said during a reported tour to a steel factory, "Only four years are left before opening the gate of a great prosperous powerful nation," according to a dispatch from Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency late last year. Pyongyang has recently escalated tensions with South Korea, reviving a threat of war on the divided peninsula. The North is also now believed to be accelerating preparations to possibly test-launch a long-range missile capable of striking U.S. territory. The last attempt, which failed, came in 2006. The tensions also come ahead of a visit to the region, including South Korea, this week by Obama's top diplomat, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who on Friday warned the North "to avoid any provocative action and unhelpful rhetoric" aimed at Seoul. North Korea has long relied on saber-rattling ahead of crucial negotiations to win concessions. That strategy, which culminated in its 2006 underground nuclear test, has always worked. Even former President George W. Bush softened his once hawkish stance and offered concessions through bilateral talks he had once vehemently rejected. The incentives the impoverished North has received so far from the U.S. and other nuclear negotiating partners include much needed fuel oil and removal from Washington's list of states that sponsor terrorism. The North is expected to seek bigger political and economic benefits in future talks, analysts say. "Though he's a dictator and lacks the ability to manage the economy, I think Kim Jong Il is trying to pull off some (economic) achievement by 2012," said Hong Hyun-ik, an analyst at the Sejong Institute, a security think tank near Seoul. Hong said since conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak halted aid to the North, Kim is trying to meet his goal by extracting concessions from the U.S. with his only negotiating chip: nuclear weapons. "But the U.S. has considered other matters more important and hasn't even tried to talk to" the North, he said. "The North's message is 'Look, here is an important problem. Let's talk.'" While trying to draw Obama's attention with the missile and other moves, the North has also carefully set up its negotiating position in an attempt to maximize concessions in future talks. Around the time of Obama's inauguration, the North's Foreign Ministry issued a series of statements that included demands sure to be seen as unreasonable by the U.S., including six-party negotiations should be turned into nuclear arms reduction talks now that the North is a nuclear power. North Korea also rejected a long-running request from the U.S. and the other negotiating partners _ China, Japan, Russia and South Korea _ that it agree to verify its past nuclear activities, saying verification should take place only at the final stage of the denuclearization process. "What the North is saying is that it can drop these demands, but it should get something in return first," said Hong, who also believes Kim wants to "hand a solid regime over to a son" through a deal with Obama. The prize for North Korea has always been to establish diplomatic relations with the United States, lifting it to the same status as rival South Korea with which it fought the 1950-53 Korean War. Clinton, in her first major policy speech Friday, also said the U.S. was ready to "normalize bilateral relations," sign a peace treaty and provide economic aid if Pyongyang gives up nuclear weapons and accepts verification. Future negotiations will be difficult, but both sides will still be able to reach a compromise, give-and-take deal because it is in their respective interests, Hong said. And for the North Koreans, there is no doubt that Kim, despite his ailments, is calling the shots. "He is an extraordinary strategist," Hong said.
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