It came as a big surprise when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi announced Friday he will visit North Korea on Sept. 17 for face-to-face talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. "A summit meeting is essential to further progress," Mr. Koizumi told reporters. "I want to find clues for resolving outstanding issues through direct dialogue."
We welcome the decision, which represents Japan's willingness to put the past behind it and establish normal ties with communist North Korea. Reports from North Korea indicate Pyongyang is reciprocating. The planned one-day trip to Pyongyang -- the culmination of more than a year of behind-the-scenes diplomacy, according to Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda -- will be considered successful if it lays the groundwork for normalization talks.
Mr. Koizumi will be the second Japanese head of government, after the late Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, to visit a nation with which Japan had had no official ties at the time. Mr. Tanaka's 1972 visit to Beijing led immediately to the normalization of Sino-Japanese relations. Such a dramatic turn of events is unlikely this time around. But there is no doubt that the coming summit meeting between the two leaders, following the historic inter-Korean breakthrough in June 2000, will turn a new page not only in Japan-North Korea relations but also in the history of other relations involving the Korean Peninsula.