A startling piece of news appeared deep in a Wall Street Journal report last week on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s tour of the Far East. It said that she offered “new diplomatic language” for China to pass along to its ally, North Korea. Among her points was “reiterating U.S. respect for North Korea as a sovereign country.”

A check with the State Department showed that she had made the same point two or three times on her current tour. Was this something new? The spokesman said the United States had earlier expressed respect for North Korean sovereignty, but not lately – in fact, not since the Clinton administration.

The newspaper Seoul Times caught the importance: “In an unexpected move, Rice called North Korea ‘a sovereign state,’ becoming the highest U.S. official to verbally recognize the sovereignty of North Korea. In the past months, she had indignated (sic) North Korea by referring to it as an ‘outpost of tyranny.'”

The Washington Post caught up with the new development in a story mainly about her statement that she had been discussing “other options in the international system” if North Korea continued to stay away from the stalled six-nation talks on its nuclear weapons program. The Post said she carefully balanced her comments, offering conciliatory language and calling North Korea a “sovereign state.”

It’s more than that. North Korea has been demanding for four years that the United States recognize its sovereignty. Until Ms. Rice broke the ice, it is clear that the Bush administration had a rule against recognizing North Korea’s sovereignty.

Not to make too much of a shift in language, it must be kept in mind that Secretary Rice is a tough negotiator and may well resort to an aggressive campaign including a request for United Nations economic sanctions if North Korea continues to balk at resuming the six-nation talks. And she has said repeatedly that bilateral talks are out of the question. She argues that if North Korea talked separately with the United States, South Korea, China, Russia and Japan it could use those talks against each other.

Still, she must realize that the old policy wasn’t working. From the start, the Bush administration evidently banked on political and economic pressure, along with an implied threat of a possible military strike, to bring about the collapse of the North Korean regime. In the six-nation talks, China has refused to pressure North Korea

to return to the table.

The point man for the old policy, all stick and no carrots, was former Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton, whose failing strategy was to say, “I don’t do carrots.” When Ms. Rice became secretary of state, she passed over Mr. Bolton as her deputy, despite the advice of Vice President Dick Cheney, and Mr. Bolton soon was out of the way as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Real negotiations may be far off. North Korea recalls past insults and may even relish them for domestic political reasons. And North Korea continues to fear U.S. rockets. But the beginnings of a thaw seem to be in sight.