In what passes for a charm offensive, North Korea just released one of three Americans it has been holding prisoner. This surprise follows North Korea's high-level outreach to South Korea during the Asian Games, its decision to engage, not dismiss, a damning United Nations report on its human rights abuses, and a perverse warning-cum-invitation to the U.S. that thousands of American servicemen's remains from the Korean War risk being lost to "land rezoning and other gigantic nature-remaking projects."
Get ready, Charlie Brown: Kim Jong Lucy is teeing up the football again.
It's no coincidence that North Korea freed Jeffrey Fowle on the 20th anniversary of the U.S.-North Korea Agreed Framework, an agreement that froze North Korea's nuclear program in return for fuel oil and two proliferation-resistant light-water reactors. North Koreans take their anniversaries seriously. Yet before the U.S. responds, it should reflect on the failure of two decades of diplomacy toward North Korea.
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