North Korea wants to use detained American citizens to reopen dialogue with the United States in an ultimate attempt to get Washington to recognize the communist nation as a nuclear weapons state, a U.S. expert said Tuesday.
North Korea has allowed foreign media, including the U.S. cable news channel CNN, to interview the three U.S. citizens -- Kenneth Bae, Matthew Todd Miller and Jeffrey Edward Fowle -- on Monday. The rare interviews suggested the North wants to use their cases as leverage to resume negotiations with the U.S.