ed Release of a US detainee

Pyongyang’s move should lead to resumption of dialogue

North Korea’s release of Jeffery E. Fowle Tuesday, a U.S. citizen who was held in the isolated nation for six months, was as abrupt as it was welcome.

And, unlike in the past, Pyongyang set the 56-year-old American free reportedly without demanding that a high-level U.S. official, incumbent or former, visit to negotiate any form of quid pro quo exchange agreed to through closed door negotiations.

If true, this latest move indicates how eager the reclusive regime ― and its leader ― are about winning approval from the international community, and reopening dialogue with the United States.

Nothing showed this better than a report by its official mouthpiece, the Korean Central News Agency, which emphasized that the North’s young leader, Kim Jong-un, ``took the special step to release the American criminal in consideration of repeated requests from U.S. President Barack Obama.”

If so, Pyongyang needs to realize that its "hostage diplomacy” will no longer work as it did in the past, and release two other American detainees ― Kenneth Bae and Matthew Miller ― without further delay. As long as the North continues to hold these men against their will, the international community can’t help but regard such action as an additional abuse of human rights in which people are used as political bargaining chips.

Despite various political intentions apparent behind North Korea’s decision to release Fowle, it is nonetheless encouraging to see the Stalinist regime move toward greater openness and provide some protection, if ostensibly, of human rights, as seen by the improved willingness of North Korean officials to discuss these issues and a recent publication by Pyongyang concerning this subject. Undoubtedly, the North’s standards on this universal issue still remain far below the required global standards, but the fact that officials there now acknowledge the existence of human rights problems is, in itself, a vast improvement.

However, all these gestures are likely to fall short of changing Washington’s policies regarding North Korea, especially economic sanctions it imposed in response to the North’s nuclear weapons development program. Our attention was drawn again to this issue after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said recently, ``We expect the situation will improve in the next several weeks or months, allowing us to return to talks (discussing North Korea’s denuclearization). The United States is more than ready to do so.”

Echoing the top U.S. diplomat, Washington’s special envoy to the six-party talks, Sydney Seiler said, "Just think of a scenario, in which North Korea declares its return to the dialogue table, suspending atomic and missile tests and stopping weapons-making activities.” If this means Washington is set to ease its preconditions for resuming the six-nation talks, Pyongyang can ill afford to miss such an opportunity. However, as has been witnessed so many times over the past 20 years, no amount of positive indicators are any guarantee substantive progress until this occurs in real terms.

And that explains why Seoul should become active about turning possibilities into reality by expanding channels of contract with Pyongyang. The Park Geun-hye administration took a correct, if small, step in this regard when it decided to dismantle a Christmas tree-shaped propaganda tower located in the border area, which has, for decades, triggered vehement protests from North Korea, a Stalinist, atheistic state.