In a fresh sign of diplomatic realism, North Korea has agreed to resume six-nation talks on defusing a nuclear-arms crisis. This is the most encouraging result of last week's visit to Pyongyang by Mr. Wu Bangguo, head of China's legislature and No. 2 in the Chinese Communist Party. In a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, Mr. Wu supported North Korea's economic reforms and promised aid to that country.
The agreement itself is no guarantee that the next round of talks will succeed, yet there is reason to hope that it will give further impetus to the six-party dialogue, which began in Beijing in August. Although the first round ended inconclusively, the two principal players -- the United States and North Korea -- now seem more willing than before to work out a peaceful and diplomatic solution to the nuclear standoff. Indeed, prospects for detente on the Korean Peninsula look better than at any time since October 2002, when the North admitted running a uranium-based, nuclear-weapons program.
In a way, the situation is back to where it was in June 2001, when U.S. President George W. Bush indicated a willingness to negotiate a phased and comprehensive peace deal with Pyongyang -- before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks changed everything. After the Bush administration toughened its Korea policy and the hardliners prevailed over the moderates, the North Koreans ratcheted up tensions through nuclear brinkmanship, such as expelling U.N. inspectors, starting to reprocess spent nuclear fuel rods and announcing it possessed atomic bombs.