A number of news articles - IHT, BBC, The Australian - have adopted a rose-tinted view of US/NK bilateral talks.
What we are seeing is not "breakthrough". This is merely trying to undo the terrible damage that Bush has done in his hamfisted confrontational approach to international politics.
This issue has been talked about in recent diaries here and here. Basically, in 2002 Bush provoked the ever unstable North Korean dictator with the completely unwarranted "Axis of Evil" speech and then backed out of the nuclear deal that had been keeping the peninsula relatively stable.
So finally we may eventually see a return to sanity, although we're not there yet by any means.
The strange thing here is the way that the international media have decided they need to applaud so loudly, despite the fact that the situation has yet to get back to the state of affairs that this administration inherited - a quiet and improving relationship between the US and North Korea.
IHT:
More than 50 years after the end of the Korean War, the United States and North Korea opened historic talks Monday on steps to establish diplomatic relations following Pyongyang's agreement to dismantle its nuclear program.
BBC:
Analysts describe it as a breakthrough in efforts to end years of feuding since the US led an international force against the North in the 1950-1953 Korean War.
The (more restrained) Australian:
THE US and North Korea started talks today aimed at normalising diplomatic ties as part of an agreement under which Pyongyang has pledged to scrap its nuclear arms programs in exchange for aid.
Does this seem excessive to anyone else?