There are welcome indications that the US is preparing to resume talks with North Korea. The Bush administration's freeze on the dialogue that Bill Clinton had begun was understandable: the new administration clearly needed time to review what its predecessor had done.
But further delay is only going to set back the process of promoting change in North Korea through engagement with the rest of the world.
The US appears to be close to completing a review of its policy towards North Korea, and there are indications that the only real change from the Clinton administration's policy is going to be an insistence on tougher verification of any restraints on missile development and on the production of nuclear material by the North.
The freezing of the dialogue has also stalled the reconciliation talks between Seoul and Pyongyang. Officials from the US, Japan and South Korea, who met recently in Hawaii as part of the Trilateral Co-ordination and Oversight Group on North Korea, were optimistic that these talks could restart soon with a visit to Seoul by North Korea's Kim Jong-il.
It is important not to loose sight of what has been achieved so far in bringing North Korea in from the cold. A landmark agreement in 1994 saw North Korea agree to shut down a nuclear facility where plutonium that could be used in warheads was produced.
Pyongyang has also said that it is ready to halt its missile programme if it gets help from the US to launch satellites, as well as financial assistance to get its economy growing.