The meeting between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, scheduled for Tuesday in Pyongyang, will provide a historic opportunity to end decades of enmity between Japan and North Korea. Mr. Koizumi is the first Japanese head of government to visit that country. It remains to be seen, though, whether his one-day trip will produce a breakthrough.
The two nations, often described as "distant neighbors," still have no diplomatic ties. North Korea, which came into being in 1948, three years before the Korean War started, also has no formal relations with South Korea and the United States. Normalization of Japan-North Korea relations, it is hoped, will provide a powerful incentive for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, the last remaining bastion of the Cold War.
With the era of Soviet communism over and with a reborn Russia forging ties with the U.S. and other Western nations, the existence of an isolated Stalinist state in the northern half of the peninsula remains the largest pocket of instability in East Asia. The Koizumi-Kim summit, which has the blessing of the other key players in the region -- the U.S., South Korea, China and Russia -- cannot be allowed to fail.