Opening North Korea

This is a fascinating development, and I admit that it's the first I've heard of it (the article is from December, 2004). Mongolia, the key to opening N. Korea? Wow. But it makes sense...

Once allies within the Soviet bloc, North Korea and Mongolia chose very different tacks after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990. While North Korea's continuing Stalinism has brought it to the brink of collapse, Mongolia undertook a series of political and economic reforms that revitalized the country.

"I really believe that Mongolia's experience is very much transferable to North Korea, and we can become a kind of transition consultant to them," Tsakhiagiyn Elbegdorj, Mongolia's prime minister, said in a recent interview. The North Koreans "listen to us because we're not Western people trying to teach them [the Western] way of life. We are like them, and through workshops and meetings we are simply sharing our knowledge, our experience with them."

Read it all for yourself.