Diplomacy, it appears, is making a comeback in the Bush administration. After years of threats and increasing financial pressure, a surprise visit by the U.S. envoy brought substantial progress in ending the nuclear standoff with North Korea. Earlier this month, President Bush met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Kennebunkport, a meeting meant to smooth the countries’ sometimes troubled relations.

Here’s former President George H.W. Bush’s recipe for personal diplomacy: “Sit down, no necktie, sit in a beautiful house overlooking the sea and talk frankly without a lot of straphangers and note takers, people that have separate agendas handing you notes and all of that.”

There wasn’t a sea and he probably wore a necktie, but Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill says frank talk resulted in progress with regard to North Korea’s nuclear program. Mr. Hill unexpectedly flew to North Korea last month where he met with the country’s foreign minister and chief nuclear negotiator. Mr. Hill is the first senior U.S. official to visit North Korea since October 2002.

Since then the Bush administration has dealt with North Korea through sporadic six-party talks and has refused to talk directly to Pyongyang until the country closed its nuclear reactor in Yongbyon. In late June, however, North Korean officials asked to meet with Mr. Hill, according to his account. Within days, he was en route to Pyongyang without any conditions for meeting with his North Korean counterparts.

After his meeting, Mr. Hill said North Korean officials were ready to promptly shut down the nuclear reactor. They had done the same in February, an agreement that fell apart when North Korean funds remained frozen by the United States. The $25 million was recently transferred from a bank in Macau to North Korea. The country is also to get food and fuel aid in exchange for stopping its nuclear program.

Shortly after his visit, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency were in the country. North Korea expelled IAEA inspectors in 2002 but invited them back days before Mr. Hill’s visit. Proving its unreliability, the country conducted short-range missile tests while the inspectors were at the Yongbyon reactor.

This will no doubt be a discussion point for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whom Mr. Hill said was prepared to attend six-party talks in Beijing later this summer. It would be the first meeting between a U.S. secretary of state and senior North Korean officials since Madeleine Albright met with Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang in late 2000.

In a rambling letter to President Bush last year, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suggested that the two had a lot in common and could gain from dialogue. Bush’s response was to say he was ready to meet with Iranian officials – if they first verifiably gave up their nuclear weapons aspirations, leaving much less to talk about.

Perhaps Mr. Hill could head to Iran, with or without a necktie.