LOS ANGELES -- While most of the world's attention following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has focused on rooting out Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, there has been quiet progress on another perennial terrorism problem -- North Korea.
Since the attacks, Pyongyang has tried to distance itself from terrorism; just this month it announced plans to join two important international antiterrorism conventions. This breakthrough should be welcomed, and Washington should seize the opportunity to persuade Pyongyang to resolve all outstanding issues regarding North Korea's terrorist past and to open a path to improved relations.
North Korea is one of seven countries on the U.S. State Department's list of nations that allegedly back terrorism, a condition that precludes U.S. economic (nonhumanitarian) assistance and effectively blocks international financial institutions from providing loans to the impoverished state. Pyongyang earns this distinction because of a long record of alleged terrorist acts, including a deadly bomb attack on a delegation of senior South Korean officials in Myanmar in 1983; the 1987 mid-air bombing of Korean Air flight 858, which killed all 115 passengers and crew; and its provision of safe haven for nine Japanese Red Army members who hijacked a Japanese airliner to Pyongyang in 1970. North Korean agents also were allegedly behind multiple assassinations and assassination attempts, and the kidnapping of thousands of South Korean, Japanese and other foreign nationals over the past 50 years.