SEOUL, South Korea -- Just last month, diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula seemed a permafrost of enmity and distrust, with relations between North Korea and South Korea distinctly chilly and bleak.
Now there are signs of a thaw. No one knows whether it will get very far, but diplomats and scholars say that forces are at work to create far-reaching opportunities to reduce tensions on the Korean Peninsula over the next few years.
One opportunity will come Wednesday, when officials from the United States and South Korea sit down in New York with senior diplomats from North Korea to discuss a proposal for talks that could lead to a formal end to the Korean War. The fighting was suspended in 1953 with a simple armistice, rather than a real peace treaty, and the border across the middle of Korea remains the site of the greatest massing of enemy troops on the globe.
The meeting will be simply talks about talks, for North Korea has agreed only to accept a briefing about what the four-party talks -- involving the United States, China and the two Koreas -- would be about. But officials note that a handful of other efforts are also under way to ease tensions.
In one of the more modest steps, the South Korean government authorized seven domestic companies to do business in North Korea yesterday, in such sectors as manufacturing textiles and bottling mineral water. South Korea has also agreed to send North Korea 300 tons of flour, a small amount but a hint of what South Korea could provide.
Many people expect the United States and North Korea to open liaison offices in each other's capitals later this year, a step toward the eventual establishment of diplomatic relations. The United States may also ease its sanctions against North Korea and, together with Japan, send some food assistance.
North Korea is expected to approve further visits by U.S. experts who would search for the remains of soldiers killed in the Korean War, and U.S. and North Korean officials will also discuss the spread of missiles. Some diplomats think that North Korea could be induced to give up its entire ballistic missile program if the price were right.
And then, the ground-breaking is expected this spring on a landmark project to build two new light-water nuclear reactors for North Korea, in exchange for its giving up its suspected nuclear weapons program. South Koreans would then be based at the construction site in North Korea.
