SEOUL -- The success of Tuesday's Japan-North Korea summit in Pyongyang shows just how much critics underestimated both Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Both demonstrated a considerable amount of diplomatic skill, and courage, during this historic one-day meeting, which appears to have accomplished Tokyo's objective of getting the normalization process back on track.

Most pundits agreed that the meeting would be considered a failure if Koizumi did not achieve at least a partial accounting of the missing Japanese citizens believed to have been abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and '80s. I had even suggested that the North Korean leader, in response to Koizumi's expected apology for Japan's colonial transgressions, might acknowledge in return that the unresolved state of hostility had resulted in occasional unfriendly acts by the North against Japan as well. But even the most optimistic could not have expected a full confession and apology from Kim Jong Il for the "regrettable" actions that had occurred against the backdrop of "decades of hostile relations."

While attributing the kidnapping to "blind heroism" on the part of "misguided" military intelligence officials, Kim asserted that "since I came to know about this, the persons responsible have been punished," promising that "it will never be allowed to happen again."