The election of Roh Moo-hyun in South Korea's presidential election is likely to mark the beginning of a new phase in relations between Seoul and the United States. At the same time, it may help alleviate tension on the peninsula since Mr Roh, like outgoing President Kim Dae-jung, advocates the 'sunshine policy' of rapprochement with North Korea.
The US, too, should welcome Mr Roh's election. Although his opponent, Lee Hoi-chang, was more of a hardliner in the mode of President George W. Bush, what is needed is someone who can communicate with Pyongyang rather than someone who refuses to talk to the North.
Washington, while refusing to open dialogue with Pyongyang, has made clear it wants Seoul and Tokyo to keep their channels of communication with North Korea open. The worst possible situation would be one where nobody was talking to Pyongyang, forcing its leader, Kim Jong-il, to feel isolated and, perhaps, resort to desperate action.
Mr Roh's election, at a time of great tension between North Korea and the US, shows that a large proportion of the South Korean electorate no longer sees Pyongyang as a threat. Otherwise, the voters would have opted for Mr Lee. It is important for North Korea to be given some room to manoeuvre. That is the essence of the 'good cop, bad cop' strategy, which gives a suspect the feeling that he has a choice. It is only if South Korea and Japan are seen as not being entirely on the same wavelength as America that the US can continue to play the 'bad cop', while Japan and South Korea offer Pyongyang a face-saving way out of its dilemma: how to give up its nuclear programme without appearing to be surrendering abjectly.
As former South Korean foreign minister Han Sung-joo said, the 'sunshine policy' has demonstrated to North Korea 'that it can get help from the outside world'. Mr Han also said that while in the 1990s, 'the US was playing the good cop, South Korea the bad cop', today 'the roles seem to be reversed'. But what the two countries need 'is the recognition that they have a viable strategy and that it should be better co-ordinated'.
Mr Roh, while offering to try to improve relations between the US and North Korea, must never lose sight of the fact that Seoul will never condone the development of weapons of mass destruction by Pyongyang. That message has to be unambiguous.