Inside North Korea - The Nation Under Isolation

Earlier this year, David Guttenfelder, chief Asia photographer for the Associated Press, along with Jean H. Lee, AP bureau chief in Seoul, were granted unprecedented access to parts of North Korea as part of the AP's efforts to expand coverage of the isolated communist nation. 

The pair made visits to familiar sites accompanied by government minders, and were also allowed to travel into the countryside accompanied by North Korean journalists instead of government officials. Though much of what the AP journalists saw was certainly orchestrated, their access was still remarkable. 

Collected here are some of Guttenfelder's images from the trip that provide a glimpse of North Korea.

A view of central Pyongyang, North Korea, at dusk on April 12, 2011. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelde

A statue known as the Monument to the Three Charters for National Reunification, which symbolizes the hope for eventual reunification of the two Koreas, arches over a highway at the edge of Pyongyang, North Korea, seen on April 18, 2011. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)  

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