On August 29, the North Korean government released four South Korean fishermen whose boat had strayed into Northern waters a month earlier. The return of the crew came shortly after the freeing of a South Korean manager in the Kaesong industrial zone, detained in March for making derogatory comments about the paradise formally known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. And early last month, Kim Jong Il, the North Korean supremo, personally pardoned two American journalists accused of spying and allowed Bill Clinton to take them home.
The release of the hostages was accompanied by overtures to both the United States and South Korea, Pyongyang's two main adversaries. First, in an unmistakable sign it wanted to talk, the North sent diplomats to New Mexico, whose governor, Bill Richardson, they consider a trusted interlocutor. Days later, North Korean envoys traveled to Seoul for the funeral of former president Kim Dae-jung, carrying a message from Kim Jong Il to South Korea's current leader, Lee Myung-bak.
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