Progress with North Korea

Exactly 50 years ago, "Operation Big Switch" was getting underway in Korea, with the first of more than 3,300 American prisoners of war being released by the Communists. In the Mahoning Valley, seven families anxiously awaited word of their sons' releases, while the families of 11 other Youngstown-area men who had been listed as missing in action could only hope and pray for news of their loved ones.
A cease-fire had been reached in a painful and costly war. The knowledge of just how painful and costly the Korean War was -- 33,629 battle deaths, 20,617 deaths from other causes -- makes what is happening in Korea today all the more important.
President Bush scored a small but impressive victory in the battle of wills with North Korea by refusing to accede to that country's demand for bilateral talks with Washington. The Bush administration stuck to its guns, describing North Korean belligerence as a regional problem and demanding a regional approach.
A good start
North Korea has agreed to six-nation talks that will include China, South Korea, Japan and Russia. The agreement gets North Korea to the table. But getting its unstable leader, Kim John Il, to agree to abandon the nation's dangerously rejuvenated nuclear weapons program remains an enormous challenge.
North Korea is still demanding that the United States sign a nonaggression pact, which Washington will not and should not do until Pyongyang dismantles its nuclear arms program in "a verifiable and irreversible manner," to use the State Department's phrasing.
North Korea has proved itself an untrustworthy negotiating partner in the past. Now that President Bush has won a diplomatic victory on the nature of the talks, it will be up to the regional negotiators, especially China, to take a firm stand with their renegade neighbor.
Victory at the bargaining table would be much sweeter than battlefield victories on the Korean peninsula. History has shown that.