You may have it pegged. The US also gives N. Korea fuel oil in exchange for "cooperation", and they get cranky about interruptions:
August 25, 2002
N. Korea demands U.S. power payments
PYONGYANG, North Korea, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- The United States should compensate North Korea for electric power it has not received from delayed light water nuclear reactors the U.S. is helping build, the communist regime's broadcasting network said Sunday.
The demand for money from the United States came as officials from Japan, which has also pledged a large portion of the reactor project, visited North Korean officials in their capital in talks intended to establish diplomatic relations. "The most urgent matter in maintaining the Democratic People's Republic of Korea-U.S. Agreed Framework is the issue of compensating DPRK's electricity loss due to the United States delaying the provision of light water reactors," the broadcast commentary said. The United States, it said, "has made several excuses, intentionally delayed the construction and recently just started the basic concrete tamping." The project, deemed crucial to relieving North Korea's desperate shortage of electricity, "still lingers at the starting point" eight years after it was begun, the commentary said. "Severe difficulties," it continued, "are seriously threatening our livelihood."
Instead of hastening the project, the United States has again raised the issue of nuclear facility inspection, the commentary said, an issue that "will be resolved" when the reactors are built.
So the N Koreans want us to build them two, non-bomb making, nuclear power plants, and then it will talk with us about its other, bomb making, power plants. Expensive conversation.