With U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gearing up to visit North Korea, it is a good time to take a deep breath and assess where this political roller coaster is headed. We have barely digested the last photo opportunity: the remarkable image of North Korea's top general, Vice Marshal Cho Myong Rok, in the White House, in full military regalia, chatting with President Bill Clinton. Albright clinking glasses with Kim Jong Il may top even that. But it is time to determine where the symbols stop and the substance begins.
Cho's visit was rich in imagery, but short on concrete achievement. It would be unfair to dismiss the importance of these visits -- at last, after nearly eight years of talking to mid-level North Koreans, the Clinton administration is finally talking to the few at the top who matter in Pyongyang. And there have already been small, but concrete results: North Korea pledged last week to continue its moratorium on missile tests and to redouble its commitment to the Agreed Framework.
However, the joint communique issued at the end of Cho's visit is an odd document, which can be read in different ways. On one level, it is a statement of grand intent. It proclaims that both sides "have decided to take steps to fundamentally improve their bilateral relations," that "neither government would have hostile intent toward the other" and that both sides are committed "to building a new relationship free from past enmity." Who can argue with such goals?