A KOREAN OPPORTUNITY

In a dramatic shift in policy, President Bush has decided to open long-delayed talks with North Korea, which he has repeatedly described as a member of an “axis of evil.” He did so after the urging of Japan’s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who had told the president about his own promising summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Heading a U.S. delegation will be Assistant Secretary of State James A. Kelly, who has been poised to go for eight months. He is scheduled to visit Pyongyang Oct. 3 to 5 to plan negotiations that could last a year or more.

Success of the talks will depend on whether the Bush administration can bring itself to see North Korea not only as a security threat but also as a nation in trouble. It is in desperate financial straits. It is planning a venture into market economics involving a huge free-trade zone in cooperation with China, but it doesn’t want to become wholly dependent on China. And it fears a pre-emptive attack by the U.S. bombers and the 37,000 U.S. troops and additional thousands of South Korean troops massed just south of the border.

Weapons of mass destruction are at the top of Washington’s agenda. The United States suspects that North Korea has enough plutonium for one or two nuclear bombs and is developing a long-range missile capable of hitting an American city. The United States wants international inspection to see whether North Korea is abiding by its 1994 promise to freeze weapons development. More important is the U.S. concern about North Korea’s export of missiles to Iran and the risk that it will furnish weapons to other rogue states and terrorist groups. Washington also wants North Korea to reduce and pull back its million-strong army and heavy artillery from the border with South Korea.

To get anywhere with these aims, the Bush administration must offer something in return. North Korea exports missiles as a rare source of foreign exchange. If it stops, it needs compensation, which could take the form of food aid. If it agrees to pull back its troops, the United States and South Korea will have to pull back, too.

President Bush has embarked on what could be a long but eventually fruitful negotiations. But it is not yet clear how far he will go and whether his people have gotten the word. After Mr. Bush had spoken with Mr. Kim by telephone to agree to talks, the White House spokesman reiterated Mr. Bush’s contempt for the North Korean leader and said, “Nothing has changed in the president’s thinking about the North Korean president.”