SEOUL -- Under normal circumstances, the meaning of a great event should become clearer in retrospect than in prospect. Yet on the first anniversary of last year's Korean summit, confusion rather than clarity reigns. In a sense, a year is too short a time to know if real change has occurred, setting peninsular relations on a new trajectory, or whether we are still circling the same track. It is still hard to know if the Pyongyang summit meets the test of a historic event: Has it truly altered the political landscape on the Korean Peninsula?

Although the summit has been followed up by a series of ministerial meetings, the process was put on hold by the North pending the completion of a U.S. policy review. The big question now is if and when North Korean leader Kim Jong Il will make his promised return visit to Seoul for the second summit now that the policy review is completed and the United States is prepared to re-engage. The summit script called for a play in two acts, not one. Without a second summit, last year's meeting in Pyongyang will fall short of being a truly historic event. It could also signal a final curtain call for Seoul's Sunshine Policy.

While it appears that the North wants better relations with the U.S., its attitude toward Seoul is difficult to fathom. For example, while Southern political and social organizations were invited to Mount Kumgang for an anniversary event, South Korea's government was kept at arms length in retaliation for similar U.S. treatment of the North.

Then, as if that were not enough of a put-down, North Korean commercial vessels challenged Seoul anew, transiting both the Northern limit line and the Cheju Strait and forcing the South into the Catch-22 situation of having to decide whether to respond or back down. Whatever Pyongyang's motive for these provocative actions -- to save money, to save time, to save fuel -- the Seoul government lost face with its own people and the Sunshine Policy was undermined.

Meanwhile the North has ratcheted up its anti-U.S. rhetoric in recent days, questioning the U.S. commitment to follow through on its Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization obligations and its willingness to resume missile negotiations. Whether and how it will respond to the conditional U.S. offer to re-engage across the board -- on nuclear, missile and conventional fronts -- is unclear, although Pyongyang's previous push for a U.S.-North Korean dialogue was taken as a positive sign that eventually a deal can be struck that both parties can live with.

Both Seoul and Washington profess to distrust Pyongyang's motives and continue to see the North as the primary threat in the region. While no one doubts Pyongyang's capacity to cause havoc, the challenge is to sort out whether its intentions have changed. However, the inertia of a "better safe than sorry" mentality is likely to last for a long time.

In the end, it's still all about relationships and whether they can change in a positive direction. And while the North-South relationship is the prime meridian of Korean politics, the U.S. exerts a powerful gravitational pull on both sides. If the North is really reaching out for a new relationship with Seoul, it will want the U.S. out of the driver's seat.

However, it's still up to Seoul to set the pace and timing for engagement, though this will not be easy. While South Korea enjoys a great advantage in terms of economic power and international standing, it also carries the psychological baggage, dating back to the Korean War, of security dependence on the U.S.

But that was then and this is now. While the North could strike once more, the South's security relationship with the U.S. now gives it an edge -- and the upper hand in political negotiations. Deputy U.S. Secretary of State Richard Armitage recently called attention to North Korea's ability to play a 10 high like a straight flush. Now it's up to Seoul to play its own strong hand to the hilt.