Andrei Lankov is a Director at NK News and writes exclusively for the site as one of the world's leading authorities on North Korea. A graduate of Leningrad State University, he attended Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung University from 1984-5 - an experience you can read about here. In addition to his writing, he is also a Professor at Kookmin University.
History shows every unified state formed through negotiations has failed, in large part due to elite discontent
An editorial defending the Iran war by criticizing conflict-avoidance with the DPRK fails to account for the real costs
Killing of Iranian leader is unsettling for Pyongyang, but its measured response suggests it hasn’t fully closed door
Great power competition and US retreat from exporting democracy have quashed hope for radical change in North Korea
While arms control would benefit both, Trump will struggle to get more from a confident Kim Jong Un than he did in Hanoi
Once a hero of anti-DPRK propaganda, Lee Seung-bok became an inconvenience when the ROK’s political tides changed
A failed attempt to foment revolution exemplified the intensity of Cold War struggle, and made a 9-year-old into a hero
Chung Dong-young’s claim that Koreas are separate countries concedes a reality long papered over by political fictions
Firsthand account of Kim Il Sung’s purges shows how the DPRK turned to concentration camps as a tool of political terror
Ties between North Korea, China and Russia are defined by distrust, providing a shaky foundation for a trilateral axis
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