Can Pyongyang Change Its Stripes? : North Korean Tiger Starts to Purr Toward Reconciliation; Seoul in Catbird Seat

The transformations in the communist world have forced North Korea, albeit most reluctantly, to think about loosening its Cold War stance. But any thaw, however extraordinarily welcome, is likely to take time.

Pyongyang and its most hated rival, South Korea, have announced tentative plans for their leaders to meet later this year. The proposed summit, if it occurs, could restore diplomatic relations between the two for the first time since 1945, when the Korean peninsula was split into a communist north and capitalist south.

The agreement for a summit comes less than a month after South Korean President Roh Tae Woo and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev met in San Francisco. They agreed to resume diplomatic ties, which have been suspended since the early 1900s. That move practically blew away North Korea, whose morbidly Stalinist regime was installed by the Soviet Union after World War II. It cannot forget that Moscow endorsed Kim Il Sung’s 1950 military campaign to take over the south.

Pyongyang and Seoul technically are still at war because a peace treaty was not signed after the Korean War. The last major surviving symbol of the Cold War is the heavily fortified 130-mile “demilitarized zone” that separates the two.

But Pyongyang is becoming increasingly isolated. Both the Soviet Union and China, another ally, have millions of dollars worth of trade with South Korea and want to attract investment to their countries from prosperous and thriving Seoul.

The shift, at least on the Soviet Union’s part, is indicative not only of a change in communist ideology but of Seoul’s new international status. South Korea’s economic success is second only to Japan’s in East Asia.

Pyongyang could use some of Seoul’s expertise too. Like other centrally planned communist countries, its economy desperately needs what a free-market system and private investment can provide.

Before the two Koreas disclosed plans to hold a summit, Roh said he would allow transportation and trade from and through North Korea and would support economic cooperation with socialist nations to help Korean reunification.

Delegates of North and South Korea are scheduled to meet in the border village of Panmunjom on July 26 to sign a negotiated accord of what will be discussed at the summit. That could be the first step in the dismantling the DMZ and closing the last chapter on the Cold War. Reunification no longer seems so utterly inconceivable.