A series of meetings provide reasons for cautious optimism regarding negotiations over North Korea's nuclear-weapons program. The prospect of substantial assistance from the South to the North permitted the resumption of long-stalled inter-Korean talks, while the United States and North Korea had a direct encounter in New York City to clarify positions. Neither meeting yielded a breakthrough -- that is too much to ask -- but there are signs that dialogue will continue and might lead to a resumption of the six-party talks, which have not been held since last summer.
Discussions between North and South Korea have been on hold for 10 months. The North quit them in protest when Seoul airlifted some 460 North Korean defectors who had reached Vietnam. The worsening agricultural situation in the North obliged Pyongyang to swallow its pride and request new talks and 500,000 tons of fertilizer and rice.
According to the World Food Program, which feeds more than a quarter of the North's 23 million people, food aid is running perilously low. Without donations, "only 12,000 kids in orphanages and hospitals will be getting cereals." In return for the aid, the South wanted a commitment to return to the multilateral six-party talks, which have been in abeyance for nearly a year. The North would not go that far.