The North would 'make every possible effort to boost the solidarity with the peace-loving, progressive people of the world', said an editorial in the Workers' Party mouthpiece, Rodong Sinmun, proclaiming that there was 'nothing to fear [from the] new war scheme [of] enemies such as the United States'.

The underlying message was that North Korea would love to negotiate with the US while yielding little or nothing on underlying policies.

Clearly, the temperature readings on confrontation with North Korea vary greatly.

The thermometer dropped to an all-time low after the North totally cut off dialogue with the South, cut off access from the South, fired a long-range Taepodong 2 missile and then conducted its second underground nuclear test.

But, then, the mood for reconciliation picked up. In the space of six weeks, reason replaced rage.

Early last month, Kim Jong-il received former US president Bill Clinton, releasing into his care the two American television journalists who had been held for 140 days after they were captured while filming a report on the trafficking of North Korean women crossing the Tumen River into China.

Kim and Clinton saw each other for three hours, a great chance to get the message of reconciliation through to US President Barack Obama.

Next, Kim met the chairwoman of Hyundai Asan, the South Korean satellite company responsible for developing the Kaesong Economic Complex, which lies just inside North Korea, above the Demilitarised Zone.

A Hyundai Asan technician who had been held for 137 days for badmouthing the North in flirtatious conversation with a North Korean woman was freed, and normal commercial traffic in and out of the zone was restored.

Finally, Kim sent a delegation to Seoul to commiserate over the death of Kim Dae-jung, the former South Korean president who flew to Pyongyang in June 2000 for the first ever North-South summit.

The delegation also met South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, the target for more than a year of propaganda attacks.

But then, this month, North Korea's peace offensive exploded in a mushroom cloud of words from Pyongyang that the North was entering 'the completion stage' of its programme to develop nuclear warheads with highly enriched uranium.

This announcement of serious progress towards developing an armed nuclear warhead came as a tough response to strong sanctions adopted by the UN Security Council after the North's underground test of a nuclear device with plutonium at its core.

It would seem that conciliatory gestures can hardly mask a spiralling confrontation that reveals the effectiveness of sanctions. These are crimping, if not stopping, the North's export trade in conventional arms, as well as in intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The sanctions have cut off the import of a wide range of products related to military programmes, along with luxury items for the North's elite - and, moreover, have blocked the North from international financial dealings, including many with its benefactor, China.

The US has toughened its own sanctions by blacklisting two more North Korean companies, freezing whatever assets they have in US institutions.

In the cycle of toughness and reconciliation, the betting remains that talks, whether among the six parties hosted by China, or between the US and North Korea, will accomplish little other than to forestall escalation to the level of a conflict that no one wants.

The bottom line is that North Korea's nuclear weapons programme is a point of tremendous pride for 'Dear Leader' Kim.

He may be ailing, the victim of a stroke suffered more than a year ago, but he needs to flaunt the North's nuclear prowess while gearing up for the huge celebration in 2012 of the 100th anniversary of the birth of his father, Kim Il-Sung, who reigns symbolically as North Korea's 'eternal president' more than 15 years after his death.

Donald Kirk is the author of two books and numerous articles on Korea for newspapers, magazines and journals