KOREA WATCH : Paper Pyongyang

President Bush has offered a hand to Kim Il Sung, and the North Korean president seems to be extending his own in response. But given the north’s record in such matters, it is much too early to pop any champagne corks.

At first, Pyongyang appeared unmoved by Bush’s proposal in Seoul on Monday for a cancellation of joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises--known as “Team Spirit”--on the condition that Pyongyang fulfill its promise to open its nuclear facilities to international inspectors. But later North Korea’s Foreign Ministry announced it would sign an accord with the International Atomic Energy Agency and have it ratified by Jan. 30. Today South Korea’s Defense Ministry said “Team Spirit” will be canceled this year in light of the north’s statement.

Kim surely knows by now that he can run but not hide from his nation’s international commitment in 1985 to allow inspections under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Pyongyang has little reason not to cooperate. Washington has showed its cards; last fall it withdrew all nuclear weapons from South Korea, paving the way for the Dec. 31 tentative pact between Seoul and Pyongyang that included a nonaggression agreement and a vow to ban nuclear weapons from the peninsula.

Because Pyongyang is notorious for not honoring its word, Bush is right to have cautioned Seoul this week to proceed slowly on rapprochement until Pyongyang in fact allows an international inspection. In this case, action will speak much louder than North Korea’s “paper promises.”