SEOUL -- Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang on Tuesday represents the biggest step in relations between the two countries since the end of World War II in 1945. Koizumi, though, must keep a cool head in the face of any strategic ploy that the North may try to pull off at the negotiating table. He should pay careful attention to detail while addressing the big issues at stake.

The North Korean leader's move to meet with Koizumi indicates a stark change in Pyongyang's policy, which has put the United States first in every political step since 1993. In the eyes of the North Korean leadership, the governments in Seoul and Tokyo were just "yes men," happily helping Washington maintain hegemony in Northeast Asia. The leadership in Pyongyang reasoned that if it could iron out its differences with Washington on security issues and have its regime officially recognized, better relations with Seoul and Tokyo would naturally follow.

That line of reasoning was largely validated in 1994, when North Korea and the U.S. worked out the Agreed Framework to freeze the North's nuclear program -- without direct input in the negotiations from South Korea or Japan. Yet the two sidelined players came to bear much of the financial burden of implementing the pact: Seoul was to pay $3 billion and Tokyo $1 billion toward construction of two light-water nuclear reactors Washington agreed to build in the North.