American and Korean leaders emphasized during a panel discussion yesterday that effective negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea depend on those countries' cooperation.

The panel, held at the Harvard Faculty Club and titled "U.S.-North Korea Relations: Prospects for Engagement," centered on capitalism, politics and nuclear technology.

Retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier General James F. Grant, who once directed intelligence operations in Korea, began the discussion by saying North Korea used its nuclear technology to gain power.

"Politically, obviously, they are very weak," Grant said. "They're trying to rebuild [their] political clout with nuclear weapons."

Grant said North Korea would not give up nuclear power in negotiations with other countries.

He pointed to military might as another route through which North Korea has attempted to establish international authority.

"The military is an indispensable backdrop," Grant said. "It allows them to create crises; it gives them status."

Several of the panelists recently visited North and South Korea. Han S. Park, director of the Center for the Study of Global Issues at the University of Georgia, said he had visited North Korea 28 times since 1990.

"I'm basically here to tell you more about North Korea the way it is," Park said.

Park spoke about misconceptions concerning the North Korean mentality and people.

"People say North Korea is an anomaly," Park said. "I don't think so. North Korea is quite a rational system, in the interest of the country, the system and the regime."

He said it was important to view the world from North Korea's standpoint.

"You don't have to agree to see empathetically," Park said.

Park said that many North Korean leaders feel strongly about upholding socialism and "protect[ing] their system from capitalist consumption."

"North Korea feels very strongly that it's surrounded by hostile, evil forces," he said--including South Korea, the U.S. and the People's Republic of China.