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N. Korea hates US, but likes ‘our money’: US intelligence chief

March 4, 2015
(Yonhap)

(Yonhap)

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (Yonhap) — North Korea does not like the United States, but the communist nation likes “our money,” the U.S. intelligence chief said Tuesday, recalling Pyongyang charging him for a meal when he visited the country last year.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper visited Pyongyang in November to win the release of two detained Americans. During the trip, he had a dinner with Gen. Kim Yong-chol, director of the North’s Reconnaissance General Bureau, Pyongyang’s top spy agency.

After the 12-course meal, Clapper said he received a bill for his part.

“North Korea doesn’t like us too much but they like our money,” Clapper said in an interview with PBS. “I’ve sort of become a Korean food aficionado, I guess ever since I served there. And it was a wonderful meal. It just wasn’t very enjoyable because I had a rather tense, terse exchange” with the North’s Kim, he said.

Clapper served in South Korea as director of intelligence for U.S. Forces Korea for two years in the 1980s. Visiting North Korea had been on his professional bucket list since then as he became “involved and engaged and interested in the issues of the peninsula,” he said.

In his subsequent job in the intelligence community, he continued to follow developments in North Korea. “So it was all this professional objective or professional goal, I think, if I had the chance to actually visit. And so I did. It was for me a remarkable experience,” he said.

Asked if he believes there is hope for change in North Korea, Clapper said, “No.”

“I don’t under the current regime, no. I think as I say they are very committed to their narrative now and I don’t see it changing,” he said.