One small step forward by North Korea and the US; one large step for mankind. The political fight to persuade North Korea to halt its nuclear bomb-making activities seems at last, in the dying days of the Bush presidency, to be entering a serious phase.
Washington has finally bowed to Pyongyang's request to remove it from the US list of sponsors of terrorism - making the renegade state eligible for international loans and sundry other economic benefits - in return for it agreeing to again allow inspections to verify its promise to freeze nuclear activities.
After nine years of erratic US policies - met by equally erratic and bellicose North Korean ones - the negotiations have ended up almost where they started following the highly fruitful diplomacy of the Clinton administration.
Well, not quite back to where the Clinton administration had to leave off. North Korea has now tripled the amount of nuclear weapons' material in store. Worse, it has exploded a nuclear bomb and probably has enough material for half a dozen more.
This must count as one of President George W. Bush's worst foreign-policy feats. Commitments made in tense but productive negotiations were not honoured. Mr Bush called the regime 'evil' and then offered aid. He refused to negotiate over the financial issues at stake with the money laundering of Macau's Banco Delta Asia - and then returned the frozen funds.
Fortunately, negotiations have been salvaged by a very determined US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, who took personal charge and empowered a skilful principal negotiator, Christopher Hill, to burrow through the labyrinth of confusion and misunderstandings.